Cottage Industries
Developing small local businesses that serve their communitiesThere are currently five Cottage Industries, which use the Yinthway Foundation store as their sales outlet:
- Zion Disabled Women’s Development Center – Producers of the wooden play/learning materials. They began as a group of about 7 women in one of the poor wards of Yangon. There are now about 15 women in the group.
- Zaw Nyi Naung – Producers of the rubber puzzles and plastic constructions materials. The woman who runs it is a widow with 7 children.
- Home Sweet Home – a Karen youth group which makes wooden puzzles for children of different ages.
- Shwe Yong Galay – producers of the pre-reading and pre-math box games, made of laminated cardboard. The games include lotto, bingo, memory and concentration games and various games with dice, etc.
- Moonlight – a family group. The husband was originally a rickshaw driver, but now makes a living through producing wooden play/learning materials. The quality is not quite as good as the Zion Disabled Group, but the material is also less expensive, so more affordable for the majority of preschools.