STORY
TECHNIQUE
Lamsa, which means ‘touch’ in Arabic, celebrates the special touch of Syrian and Lebanese artisans. All items are designed to showcase the artisans’ lamsa, crafting unique wearables meant to be worn with love and care.
The vests are handmade by combining traditional Syrian and modern crochet techniques from the artisans’ imaginations. Each vest takes 2 days of work. The artisan’s names are hand sewn into each vest.
Artisans
Our vests are hand-crocheted in Bekaa, Lebanon by Lamsa, a collective of Syrian and Lebanese women part of an initiative developed by Multi-Aid Programs.
Lamsa is preserving craft in conflict and leveraging creativity and design as survival tools. The majority of the artisans learned traditional crochet techniques from their mothers and grandmothers as children, but never had the opportunity to use or advance their skills. The initiative is also training younger women who never had the chance to gain this generational knowledge.
IMPACT
Our crochet vest is part of an exclusive collaboration with Lamsa, a crochet community collective developed by refugee-led NGO Multi-Aid Programs in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. The collective supports the livelihood of 50 Syrian and Lebanese women artisans by providing them with dignified income and monthly salaries.
Each vest purchase supports the livelihoods of these women artisans, while remaining profits fund a @maps.ngo primary school located in an informal tented settlement in Bekaa, Lebanon.
