Weaving a New Future in Myanmar (Burma)
MA Student's Project Wins Social Venture Award

Mai Ni Ni Aung insisted that she was completely surprised. But scarcely
any of her fellow MA students at the Kroc Institute or her fellow competitors in the 2003 Social Venture Plan Award competition were amazed at all.

Ni Ni’s plan to market beautiful traditional weavings from her native Myanmar (Burma) was one of five finalists in a competition annually sponsored by the Gigot Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Mendoza College of Business. As a finalist, she received project guidance from an MBA alumnus and an undergraduate business student during the spring.

After the first prize winner in the competition was announced in April, Ni Ni received the “Against All Odds Award,” an award created this year to acknowledge her exceptional efforts and any similar efforts by future would-be entrepreneurs. She also received private donations for her project amounting to several thousand dollars in conjunction with the award.

Ni Ni brought something quite unique to the competition that typically draws undergraduate or graduate business students. She had no business education or background but made up for that with great persistence. “ When she mentioned that she was writing this plan in her fourth language, we realized what great determination she had,” explained Gigot Faculty member Jim Falkiner, an obvious fan of Ni Ni Aung.

Ni Ni’s plan grew out of her passion to save cultural traditions of the Chin people, one of Myanmar’s eight major ethnic groups. Ni Ni particularly focused on the dying art of backstrap weaving. Using grant monies initially from the Open Society Institute, and later from the British Embassy in Burma, Ni Ni established the Sone Tu Cultural Preservation Project in 2002. This project seeks to pass on traditional Chin weaving skills, create stable jobs for Chin women, and generate income to send Chin youth to high school. Ni Ni recruited thirty-five older women who were skilled weavers. Once the multi-colored silk and cotton weavings were selling and returning income to their impoverished Chin villages, fifteen younger women joined the project as apprentices.

The weavings, which feature traditional Chin designs, sold well in Rangoon, Myanmar’s capital. When Ni Ni arrived at Notre Dame to begin peace studies in August, 2002, she brought weavings along. With help from the Kroc Institute, Ni Ni found new buyers throughout the school year, and sales and donations to her enterprise
exceeded $11,000.

Ni Ni envisions a bright future for the Song-Tu weavings and their Chin weavers. She is setting up a website and will investigate marketing the weavings at fair trade organizations and museum shops in the United States. “I made a commitment to help these people,” repeats Ni Ni
Aung who seamlessly weaves sophisticated international product marketing into her larger peacebuilding vision. After post-graduate research on a peace education manual for her native country, Ni Ni plans to return to Myanmar.

 

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