The bilum is an iconic symbol of Papua New Guinea, a traditional string bag that's used to carry everything from food, to firewood, even babies. But in Goroka, in the Eastern Highlands of PNG, Tania met a woman who has put a whole new spin on the clearly versatile bilum with one unique and promising idea.

Florence Jaukae: Tania we are here at the Goroka Bilum Markets. In Goroka this is the main market where we sell the bilum bags. This is where you get most of the bilum bags - the best bilum bags in the country.

Tania Nugent: Florence Jaukae, is known around here as the bilum meri - the bilum lady. She's taken the weave used to make the traditional string bag and applied it to clothing. So Florence, this is the headquarters for Jaukae Bilumwear...

Florence Jaukae: That's right.

Tania Nugent: How many ladies do you have working here?

Florence Jaukae: We have more than 50 ladies working here. And it was started in the year 2002. Our first exposure was in 2005 when we had the Miss PNG quest. Then in 2006 was the biggest highlight, the biggest exposure we had was the Commonwealth Games. We did the outfit for the Team PNG. That was my pride.

Tania Nugent: The exposure sent Papua New Guinea ladies rushing to place orders for what's become a hot fashion item. Jaukae Bilumwaer, was given a further boost in 2006 when PNG's Small Business Development Corporation, sent Florence to Vietnam for business training and helped her secure a loan to increase production and meet the growing demand for the bilum dress.

Nathan Timu, Small Business Development Corporation: Florence Jaukae approached our office in 2006. At that time she said she was representing a group of ladies who were in their mid 40s early 50s and she said she wanted to assist them to start up some small business.

These ladies were from the lost opportunity generation. Traditionally PNG is a very male dominated society. In the 70s when I went to school the ratio of boys to girls was like 3 to 1. For every 30 male students we had there were about 10 girls. That was in Primary school. When we went to high school about half the girls would miss out so the number of girls in school started to diminish.

Tania Nugent: Then, few women got even that far in school. Yet Florence went even further, trying out for local council elections in 2002.

Florence Jaukae: I got elected as a councillor for Ward 4. Which was one of the pride that Papua New Guinea had to have a woman as a leader, especially the third level government. This bilum was one of the projects that was funded by council.

Nathan Timu: What she basically does is she buys the materials and she gives it to the women out there and they do the weaving, the do the bilum wears, and she's the marketing arm. She collects the end project and she sells it out. And she's become a model for these ladies out there. She said 'okay do the sewing and give it to me. I will sell it and give the money back to you'.

Florence Jaukae: It assists the women to alleviate poverty. Rural people we depend more on the cash crops and coffee is one of our economics that we have. Coffee is a seasonal thing. It comes and then when it's off you wait for another season. You need to survive. So I thought that since they can weave and they can weave a bilum bag, they can weave the dresses. So now most of the women now that you've seen out there, they've got new pots for their houses, because they sell out the bilum dresses. And they've paid a lot of their school fees, instead of depending on coffee. And they've paid for clothing. A lot new things have come up.

Tania Nugent: Florence had 5 children - then adopted another four. While bilum is a tradition passed from mother to daughter, Florence only learned to weave bilum, after she'd created the bilum dress.

Florence Jaukae: My daughters are smart, they can do bilum. They've actually beat me - very badly
I actually did not learn how to make bilum from my mum. Well I actually learnt how to make bilum after wearing a bilum dress, after wearing a bilum dress. But then watching the women doing it became something that I became ashamed of. I'd be wearing a bilum dress, carrying a bilum bag and not knowing it was something that I didn't like. So I had to really sit down with women and I got my in-laws to teach me how to do a bilum. And after knowing how to do a bilum, now I'm a very proud woman. I've done three dresses, a couple of bilum bags....