Empowering Mayan women through ancient textiles

The first quarter of 2018 is about to end. Time goes by so quickly when you love what you do! With tons of dedication, since our last report, we have been working as to achieve significant accomplishments, which we love to share with you. As you are all part of our success:

During this first quarter, we have made 42 in-situ field visits, in which we carried out workshops for Mayan artisan women from the indigenous communities of Aldama, Bochil, Huixtán, Pantelhó, San Juan Cancuc, San Juan Chamula, Santiago el Pinar and Zinacantán, in the Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. These workshops are focused in creativity, product development, color palettes and tendencies, finishes and quality control. 

Besides the exchange of knowledge between them and NGO Impacto’s staff, these visits allowed us to strength our relationship, while improving confidence and understanding of their needs and their way of approaching life. Our purpose is to accompany women closely in their process of empowerment and self-management. 

Collaborative and solidary collaborations are two of the major pillars in the values of NGO Impacto. Precisely, through a collaborative work with seven different social brands committed to fair trade, artisan women have managed to reach a high-end market, one that allows them to market their products at a better price, greatly benefiting their economy and their families (more so children).

It has been a long road of learning for us and for the Mayan artisan women; we have embraced challenges together as well. Still it has been a great experience to see the results and livelihoods impact through their training and empowerment process; and through the development of innovative high-end handcrafted products.

We feel exited that two new groups of Mayan artisans have started to collaborate with us, from the municipalities of Aguacatenango and Larrainzar. We are very happy to continue expanding our network, to more and more artisan women and to places where development opportunities are limited, but where talented, committed and hard-working women live. We know it represents challenges, but we also know that while working together, we can achieve great things: from one end, to a betterment.  

We could never have made it to this point without your engagement, we are confident we will be counting with your support so that NGO Impacto will keep being instrumental in reducing poverty and inequality in the state of Chiapas, to dignify livelihoods of Mayan women.