Bold blue of Indian indigo gives Ghor Al Safi women an economic lifeline

AMMAN — Indigo and pomegranate, alongside other substances cultivated in Jordan, were the focus of a workshop in Amman on Wednesday that gave artists, fashion designers and the public a glimpse of ways to naturally dye clothes. 

Held on International Women’s Day, the Nature and Colour workshop was part of UNESCO’s “Empowering Rural Women and Increasing Resilience in the Jordan Valley” project, funded by the Drosos Foundation and held to celebrate Ghour Al Safi Women’s Association (GSWA)’s handicrafts brand “Safi Crafts”.

UNESCO project officer Nuria Roca Ruiz said that the main aims of the project are to support women in Ghor Al Safi and to combine women’s empowerment with culture. 

Fifteen women are bringing up their families and generating income through their work in Safi Crafts, she explained.

Head of GSWA, Naifa Nawasrah said the project started in 1999, then called the “Traditional Embroidery Project”, where women used to dye fabrics using 12 natural colours extracted from sands found in the area around the Dead Sea.

In 2006, the association started to dye using other natural substances, such as eucalyptus trees, tea, rubia (a plant that grows in Tafileh’s Dana area), but they struggled to produce a blue colour, she noted.

In 2013, UNESCO were helping Safi Crafts with design, training and marketing, but it was the importation of indigo seeds from India which had a profound impact. 

Managing to realise this once-elusive indigo colour, the women experimentally planted the seeds on a one-dunum plot of land in the Safi area, Nawasrah said. 

The indigo seeds were a success and the women are now planting 5 dunums as part of the second phase of the project, with plans to sell this valuable product for around JD250 per kilo, she added. 

Among those who attended the workshop and was introduced to Safi Crafts’ products was UN Women Jordan Representative, Ziad Al Sheikh. He told The Jordan Times that many women in Jordan are working hard to not only improve their own lives, but also the lives of their families and the country’s economy.

“Today [March 8] is International Women’s Day and the special theme for this year is the role of women and the changing world of work. These kinds of projects are incredibly important because they are very much focused on sustainability,” Sheikh said.

While praising the importance of projects like Safi Crafts,  he also said that there is still much to be done, as women’s participation in the workforce stands at an “incredibly low” 14 per cent.