Mayanhands.org

From the Mayan Hands website at Mayanhands.org:

"We work with 10 groups (about 200+ women), who inhabit different rural communities in the highlands of Guatemala. Working together, we design textiles that fit the tastes of people in the international market; then we seek out markets for them that pay a fair return to the women. Additionally, we work together with other organizations to offer oportunities to our weavers in many areas, including scholarships and school supplies for their children, home improvements, micro-lending, training in new skills and techniques, as well as classes in gender awareness, domestic violence, conflict resolution, and herbal medicine.

Our weavers produce the exquisite, high quality products that we proudly offer you. The backstrap loom is a painstaking art form, whereby even experts weave only one inch of brocaded cloth per hour. Considering this, we think their craftwork is very reasonably priced and hope you'll agree. Moreover, with a Fair Trade market, you can rest assured that your purchases allow these talented weavers to make a modest, but regular income with which they can feed their families better, send their children to school, and harbor dreams for a better future.

Our Grandmother, the Moon, taught the first woman to weave on a backstrap loom more than three thousand years ago. Among many Maya groups, women still experience Our Grandmother coming to them in their dreams and teaching them this complicated art form."

I am looking forward to meeting these weavers and seeing how they live. What beautiful products they produce. I can only imagine that they live with beauty around them and in them.

Leaving Thursday!

Buen viaje todos