Once devoid of value and now a pot of gold, wood scraps are the core of each furniture piece that Siargao Green Artisans lovingly create
Like the waves of Siargao’s Cloud 9, the tear-shaped island was once still, then formed a promising bump, accelerated to peak, and come 2020, caved into silence again. Blame the travel restrictions that caused tourist arrivals to cease, which made a huge impact on the once-bustling surfing destination. Tourism activities and social gatherings were banned. Construction of resorts and villas was compelled to pause indefinitely. The island was on a months-long lockdown. These circumstances left a lot of locals jobless, a challenge that pushed a young couple living in Siargao (who would rather remain anonymous) to make a move that would, later on, turn into a huge opportunity for the locals and for the island itself.
“We were both busy with other projects when the COVID-19 crisis struck. Those projects had to be put on hold leaving a whole construction team without work,” says one of the masterminds behind Siargao Green Artisans, a team that manufactures handcrafted furniture made of repurposed wood. While those who worked for their previous projects were on a forced break, the couple thought of helping them improve their talents more in furniture-making. After all, it is a craft that is not foreign to them. “All of a sudden, they had the time to hone certain skills and really improve their craft. We gave them designs to experiment with and the results were a pleasant surprise. It happened very organically.” To this couple, making furniture was an idea they had envisioned a bit further down the line but was fast-tracked by the unprecedented situation like a blessing in disguise. “Prior to the pandemic, there wasn’t much of a furniture industry in Siargao. Everyone was building so everyone had a team of capable carpenters. These carpenters know how to make furniture, they’ve been doing it for years on different projects. It was because of the pandemic and the suspension of our own construction that we ended up mobilising the team to focus on making furniture”.