Stop violence against indigenous women in Mexico

Recently we told you that we finally managed to open the official store of “Manos de Sol” handicrafts. Since 2018 we have accompanied training in traditional crafts for women who wanted to increase their income and from those training, a group of outstanding women started ventures and now several of them have organized to create the collective brand “Manos de Sol”. We are celebrating that this has borne considerable fruit among our community, we continue to look for ways to support Manos de Sol and find out the ways we can improve. 

These last few months have been great. On the one hand we learned a lot with all the marketing events we have been invited to, and we organized training to improve the quality of the products and processes, manage inventories and customer service. One of our proudest achievements is that the collective is now formally constituted as a cooperative, which is a big step and we want to thank you for promoting it! Little by little we are betting more and more on the development of the artisans so that they have more autonomy. 

What I want to tell you is that as an organization, we feel very proud because the craftswomen who were once trained in our traditional trades school are now teaching new women. As their sales increase, they need more help and they invite more women from the communities, they learn the trade and then the apprentices help collectives to produce. Soon we will have many native women, improving the community economy through the preservation of local crafts and knowledge.

Getting into the world of innovation as artisans has been fascinating, for example, our colleagues who work with palm now want to learn about natural dyes, those who work with food are questioning the information they should provide to consumers or those who work with leather, are focused on reducing waste and creating products that really have a utility. We have created alliances so that other state collectives make us part of their tours in Oaxaca and so we receive people from all over the world in Manos de Sol. After 5 years of work, all this makes our hearts vibrate and we can say: "YES, this is the good way, we are making it". 

The challenges that follow are to have more technical assistance, more alliances, more women learning and more teaching. We still have a long way to go but we do not lose pace or hope. Bicaalú'tu laabe, xquixhe pe lii ti nuulu ne ládu' which means you put your hope in, thank you for being with us. 

Thank you for listening to us and accompanying us, these steps are possible because you have joined this project.  

Best regards, 

Alejandra Rosado