From silkworms to precious handmade carpets, home-grown silk is powering a successful industry in a town in Egypt's Nile Delta city of Beheira.
In small workshops in Naga Oun town, workers breed worms, handle cocoons, extract silk threads and then weave carpets by hand from the silk.
The project, which started around five years ago, has helped many families of the town economically and provided work opportunities for women, according to the project manager, Ragab Rabea.
It takes 35 days for worms to turn into cocoons, before the extraction of threads starts. Each cocoon gives 900-1000 meters of connected thread.
Rabea hopes that the idea could expand to other towns and says that trained workers from their small plant are ready to help with guidance in similar projects elsewhere.
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