Batik Designer and Entrepreneur

At the Tangalle pola (market), tourists – both foreign and local – crowd around the colourful handicraft stalls. Garments and locally produced goods are available at a fraction of the retail prices that the urban shopping centres command. An Englishwoman bargains and buys a beautiful turquoise-blue batik sarong – an exclusive Jayanadee creation - for Rs 450 (US$ 4.40).

R P Jayanadee is a 23-year-old girl who designs and manufactures batik garments, but her story is still unfolding… Her father was a fisherman who died when she was just five years old. The family eked out its precarious existence by hiring out their most prized possession – a motorised boat. That was lost in the tsunami. They got a new engine and fishing nets, but few fishermen need to hire these without a boat. It was time for a change of profession.

When Jayanadee heard that Turtle Conservation Project (TCP, an NGO) was conducting training on batik making, she was interested. She roped in her sister Karunavatee and a friend – Piyaseeli, who had lost her house in the tsunami – to attend training with her. Trainers from Kosgoda, specialists in the art of making batik, taught them the skill.

“We attended classes once or twice a week, depending on the tutor’s availability,” Jayanadee recounts. She was simultaneously doing her GCE Advanced Level and completed her exams successfully. She followed that up with a basic computer course.

The NGO supplied a sewing machine, a table and ten yards of fabric to each trainee. Wax, dyes, cans, kerosene and other consumable materials were also provided free. Subsequently, the NGO provided another 20 yards of fabric - or the cash equivalent, if the trainee did not immediately need the fabric.

Blessed with an artistic temperament, Jayanadee manages the design element. “I do all the drawings myself, freehand, without stencils,” she says proudly. Karunavatee and Piyaseeli get actively involved in the batik manufacturing process. The sisters’ mother finishes the tailoring of garments. A cousin who runs a shop in Moneragala provides them with another avenue to sell their colourful wares.

The loss of their motorised boat could have left this family high and dry. However, the batik training has given them an alternate profession and their living standards have improved. But there is much more that needs to be done.

The family needs a large cauldron for boiling the material that would enable them to increase output. They are aware of the benefits of increasing scale without having had the opportunity to attend classes on economics. “It is uneconomical to make just two pieces at a time,” they insist. Even as they use their gloved hands to demonstrate the batik-making process, the family expresses the need for tongs and better implements. Current reality is not proving to dampen their ambition one bit. Karunavatee elaborates, “We have all the skills to convert raw material into finished product. We just need to expand, increase productivity and go to the customer; we are not getting the right price now.”

Jayanadee comes across as a young and confident professional; she dreams of starting a big factory. “Of course I hope to get married some day,” she says, “But I want to develop this industry first. I want to train and employ the people of my village in batik-making.”