Nguyen Van Nham is one of a dying breed. For more than 100 years, generations of families in his village in Vietnam earned a living by making small boats and other colorful toys from salvaged tin cans. These days, plastic toys, high-tech gadgetry, and an international economy have all but killed this once thriving village industry.

When Norman, Oklahoma, Kiwanian Larry Flanagan set out to find the “vessel king,” as Nguyen is known, he discovered that one of the old man’s sons is the only person in the village who still toils away at the craft. The son could well be the last of a century-old tradition.

The story is repeating itself in towns and villages around the globe, from basket weavers in Cameroon to wood carvers in Guatemala, as indigenous craftsmen learn they cannot compete with mass-produced goods in a highly competitive world marketplace. Crafts that in many cases have evolved into art forms die out, along with the local cultures they once sustained.

The result is more than just economically devastating. As the saying goes, “It takes a village to raise a child.” But if the village industry and culture is dying, what then becomes of the child?

Instead of passing down skills to their children, more and more artisans are forced to leave their families and villages behind and join the great migration to cities or other countries in search of higher paying jobs. The money they send home can provide better lives for their families. But that can come at a heavy cost, according to Audrey M. Pottinger, consultant clinical psychologist in the Department of Child Health, University of West Indies, Jamaica. “Research,” Pottinger says, “shows that the resulting parent-child separation and disruption of the family place the children left behind at risk for depression, suicide, low self-esteem, and poor school performance.”

Transplanting the entire family from village to city isn’t necessarily an ideal answer either, according to Larry, an international trade representative who maintains an office in Hanoi. As he has seen, for those who suffer dislocations because of economic changes, “it’s very traumatic. And it’s happening at a faster pace.”

Pottinger also warns of the seriousness of simply abandoning the past in search of what can be an uncertain future. “When societies, families, and individuals lose a sense of continuity of culture and traditions, or set out to abandon traditions, then this weakens family relationships and ties which influence child development.”

In many cases, traditional arts and crafts aren’t just part of a family or village culture; they are the very expression of that culture in tangible form. In Bruce Caesar’s family, silversmithing has been handed down generation to generation for nearly 300 years. A Native American in Anadarko, Oklahoma, Caesar’s work “has elements of the ancient culture that continues on. In recognition of the importance of that, Caesar, a member of the Pawnee-Mesquakie tribe, was named a Heritage Fellow of (US) National Endowment for the Arts.

But preserving traditional arts and crafts can do more than just sustain a culture; building them into economically viable industries can provide families with primary or supplemental incomes. This helps to improve their living standards and pave the way to brighter futures for their children and their children’s children.

In the Chapare region of Bolivia, 110 indigenous Quechua women craft hats and other items from natural and recycled materials, with technical assistance and support from The Crafts Center at the humanitarian organization CHF International. “We’ve increased the women’s monthly incomes by 100 percent,” says program officer Jennifer Marcy. “That money goes directly to feeding children, sending them to school, and buying them school supplies.”

Even children in the strife-torn Darfur region of Sudan reap benefits from their mothers’ handcrafts. With supplemental income from weaving baskets, they too generate enough income to send their youngsters to school. This is especially helpful for young girls who are often deprived of the education their brothers receive, primarily because of financial issues.

Preserving or reviving a traditional arts and crafts industry can be a challenge, especially in remote areas. Arts and crafts don’t exist in a vacuum, so the basic infrastructure of a village might need upgrading. Improvements might include bringing in electricity to power equipment or illuminate work areas; building roads for transporting raw materials and finished goods; or establishing a reliable communications system.

“All villages have desires for improvement,” says Larry Flanagan, adding that it is to the benefit of governments to help bring about those changes. “But governments can’t afford all of it. Villages have to do some on their own. That means they have to produce wealth in order to have purchasing power.”

Traditional arts and crafts industries can help produce that wealth.

These days, however, just being a superb craftsman is not enough. To succeed sufficiently to better the future of their children, artisans must develop basic business skills such as bookkeeping and marketing, as well as efficient production and delivery methods. Jennifer Marcy encourages artisans to form cooperatives when appropriate. “As a group, they often can get better rates on their raw materials or ask a higher price point if they are dealing with a middleman.”

In remote areas, marketing and shipping are major hurdles. “Shipping costs are just extraordinarily high,” Marcy says. Increasingly, small groups are marketing their crafts online, and consolidating shipping to save on costs. But Marcy names access to information as the number-one hurdle to creating a viable village crafts industry. When artisans are aware of current marketplace trends, they can produce items based on what is selling.

Arts and crafts can evolve to suit the commercial market without losing their traditional essence. For instance, The Crafts Center urges artisans to take traditional motifs, which are customarily embroidered onto wall hangings, and instead stitch them onto tablecloths or pillow covers. “That way, you’re still incorporating that traditional design,” Marcy explains.

Keeping in touch with marketplace trends isn’t the only reason arts and crafts need to change.

Bruce Caesar grew up in a house that lacked electricity and piped-in water, but was rich in his Native American heritage. He believes strongly that an artisan’s work needs to constantly evolve in order to stay fresh and vibrant, even as it holds fast to deep traditional and cultural roots.

“My father told me,” he quotes, “‘Any time the things you create continue to be that which was created before, you’re stagnant. It’s no longer art.’ So what we have is a living art that continues to create new things, but it still has the same theme.”

Traditional arts and crafts often are based on available materials; in Nguyen Van Nham’s case, tin cans.

“A major trend we’ve seen in the past 10 years is using recycled materials in crafts,” says Marcy, who believes the environment and crafts can be mutually beneficial. “We try to promote natural sustainable materials that are indigenous to the area where (craftsmen) are working.”

Indeed, supplying sustainable raw materials to artisans can provide livelihoods for additional families and villages.

Larry Flanagan is enthusiastic about the roles volunteer groups play—and can play—in developing traditional arts and crafts into viable village industries. Groups, he suggests, could work together to deliver raw materials, assist artisans in acquiring basic business skills, contribute seed money for crafts-industry development, or establish Web sites by which artisans could promote their culture and products.

That artisan-to-consumer connection can be crucial. “We make more money by articulating what we do to the people we deal with,” says Bruce Caesar, who is passing his silversmithing skills down to his three children. “We try to let them know what we are. In that way, we enrich their lives … and they enrich us.”

In both rich and developing countries, traditional artisans often struggle in anonymity. To encourage them to pass their skills to the next generation, it is important to demonstrate they are an important and appreciated part of the cultural fabric. “I think everyone responds to individual recognition,” Larry says, “no matter where they are.”

For the past 41 years, the Japan District of Kiwanis International has brought traditional craftsmen the public attention they deserve. So far, 48 craftsmen have received the district’s celebrated Japan Kiwanis Culture Award for contributions to maintaining, developing, and handing down traditional Japanese crafts. The honor, reports district secretary Takakuni Sato, is listed as one of “the best awards you want to receive” in Japan.

In 2005, Yoshino Chiba of Kurihara City in Miyagi Prefecture received the award for her family’s devotion to the ancient and increasingly rare craft of indigo dyeing at normal temperature—the oldest dyeing technique in Japan. In 1960, the technique was designated an Important Intangible Cultural Heritage by the Japanese government.

Modern business practices and well-deserved recognition aside, however, it is ultimately the consumer who decides whether traditional arts and crafts live or die.

“The purchasing power of people is amazing,” Marcy emphasizes. “Recognizing how important the handmade industry is, and buying fairly traded products, can have a huge effect on the livelihoods of artisans. You are significantly helping to preserve cultural tradition.”

Consumers can support traditional arts and crafts in their own regions by seeking out and purchasing products from local artisans. “So many times, we don’t see some of the things around us,” Bruce Caesar points out. And for international shoppers, numerous online sites offer Fair Trade arts and crafts that can be purchased from around the world.

To help raise consumer confidence, UNESCO and the ASEAN Handicraft Promotion and Development Association (AHPADA) collaborated to create the Seal of Excellence for handcraft products. To bear the seal, items must meet rigorous quality standards. Successfully launched in Asia, the Seal of Excellence is being extended to Central America, West Africa, the Arab States, and southern Europe.

With quality, tradition, and a businesslike eye to the future, just how far can a village arts and crafts industry go? Alongside the Red River in Vietnam, the celebrated ceramics artisans of Bat Trang are still finding out.

Twenty years ago, Bat Trang was a sleepy little village where traditional artisans fired ceramics in 10 old wood-burning kilns. But a new forward looking attitude, coupled with outside advice, brought financial backing that has allowed Bat Trang to transform itself. Today, 1,400 families are directly involved in the village ceramics industry, working with 300 gas-fired kilns.

“Bat Trang still has problems,” says Larry Flanagan. “But it is an example of a village that’s looked at its future, and prospered.”

Along with a proliferation of new construction, the concentration of quality ceramics shops in the revitalized village now draws tourists by the busload. “The world is literally coming to their door.”

For Nguyen and other traditional craftsmen of Bat Trang and around the globe, success is especially reflected in the newest generation. “It means everything to the kids,” Larry says. “They are better dressed, better schooled.”

He adds, “A village is a marvelous thing … a living, breathing, growing entity.” And a thriving arts and crafts industry can help provide the oxygen to keep that culture and economy alive for generations to come.