Our opening sale is now on for all our bilums until 30 September to launch our bilum marketplace.

We’ve got a dazzling range of designs and colours in the modern style synthetic yarn bilums and some eye-catching designs in the traditional natural fibre bilums.

We sell these colourful bilum handbags or shoulder-bags to raise money for our health and education projects in the remote highland communities of Paigatasa and Gimi in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. Women from the communities make a bilum handbag or shoulder bag to earn money to send their children to school – Papua New Guinea does not have free education – or to buy household goods or food or other necessities.

We pay them the amount they individually set to cover their labour, which they set with one eye also on the price the bilum would fetch in the bilum market in Goroka next to the Bird of Paradise Hotel. Every bilum is unique, with women giving their own interpretations of traditional and modern patterns. We also buy the synthetic yarn that is used in bilums like this one. By agreement with the women, we then add on an amount with all profits going to health and education projects selected, developed and managed by the communities. The prices we charge vary with the material used, size and complexity of the design.

All the money from the bilum sale goes to the woman who made the bilum and to the community projects. We don’t keep any of it.

Our opening sale is a great way to stock up early for Christmas, too.

Read about the health and education community developed and managed projects.

Read the Paiga Story.

You can also donate to our maternity waiting home project.