Pathways to autonomy: tzotzil women's empowerment

In the last three months the artisans have continued with their training processes, the Binational Network of Women Artisans renewed its collaboration agreement with the Institute for Training and Technological Linkage of the state of Chiapas and a course on basic dressmaking was given at the Artisan Development Center.

Technical training has been very important during this period, as it has strengthened the skills and capacities of the women artisans, who are incorporating this learning into their production, while diversifying their product offerings in the market.

In May, we handed out certificates to the artisans who completed the dressmaking course, which certifies the knowledge they have acquired. These certificates are important for the craftswomen, who have an official document that endorses the skills and abilities they acquired and will allow them to enter the labor market under better conditions if they consider it necessary.

"The dressmaking course was very important because I was able to put into practice what I have learned in previous courses, I feel more confident to use the sewing machine and I think that learning to make new products helps us to offer more products to our customers" testimony of a craftswoman.

In terms of income generation, the artisans participated in the production of collections for the second edition of Ensamble Artesano, an initiative focused on strengthening the Mexican artisan sector, the collections developed are available at: https://www.ensambleartesano.org/productos?filt=0&ordenar=NOAZ&m=18 in addition to the Binational Network's own collections, which are marketed at www.matat.org and in various fair trade spaces nationally and internationally.

"I am very happy with everything we have learned during this period, because we are making progress as Social Enterprises of Women Artisans, we are becoming better organized, we learn from the workshops of the Binational Network and we put it into practice in our productions, now we produce with very good quality and the prices of our products have a better price", testimony of a craftswoman.