Wuren demonstrates sunflower handicrafts for women. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

Sunflower Sisters, a small family workshop creating fur and leather handicrafts, has helped lift hundreds of impoverished women out of poverty.

The workshop is composed of nearly 40 Ewenki and Mongolian women from pastoral areas, and its products have been sold in Beijing, Sanya, Russia and Japan.

The workshop was established in 2010 by Wuren Yijirheyen, a 53-year-old shepherd in the Ewenki Autonomous Banner in North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

Her workshop's main products are themed around sunflowers - the Ewenki ethnic group's traditional ethnic decoration - and are popular among tourists for their exquisite craftsmanship, ethnic characteristics and beautiful symbolism.

As a nomadic minority group living in the high altitude areas of northeastern China, the Ewenkis worship the sun, warmth and brightness, Wuren said. 

Sunflower motifs, commonly made of cowhide, sheepskin and sable fur and decorated with agate stones, are believed to bring blessings and good luck to local inhabitants.

To help the impoverished women in her hometown, Wuren has devoted herself to poverty alleviation projects in pastoral areas and mountainous ethnic minority regions since 2014.