Capacity-building for rural women artisans in Peru

Awamaki works in rural Quechua villages located high in the Andes mountains. We partner with women’s artisan cooperatives to offer capacity-building and training in technical, business and leadership skills. We also connect them to markets and help them sell their unique handmade products in Peru, the United States, and Europe.

Part of Awamaki’s programming with every partner cooperative is supporting the construction of a shared workspace to run their business, hold trainings, and host tourists. Each cooperative purchases land in the name of their business, and contributes manual labor and rustic materials like stones, soil and adobe. We partner to provide specialized labor and modern materials like concrete and roofing materials.

 A core part of our partnership with artisan groups is that the labor for their centers is done by the artisans and their husbands. Like the trainings, it is a considerable time commitment. In Kelkanka, Awamaki and the Wakanquillas artisan cooperative have just completed the final addition to their worksite: a functional restroom.  

The center provides a centralized location where the artisans store products, and host trainings. Through support from donors like you, Awamaki has been able to complete the construction of the work site and a functional bathroom that will facilitate the growth and contribute to the success of the artisan cooperative's business, by providing them a designated, shared, work space. 

The center has provided our artisan partners with a sense of security. It created a safe and comfortable space to gather, not only to do work for Awamaki, but also for community communication. Artisans now have a place to work together if they choose. They also continue to do much of their work at home and in their fields, which is possible because the traditional backstrap loom is completely portable. 

The new weaving center has produced a cohesive and focused space, where materials are organized and people can congregate. This increases the cooperative's sense of solidarity and communication. The opportunity to host trainings and work alongside one another has facilitated an improvement in quality of work. Having a space designated for the artisans’ craft has been motivating and has yielded collective success.

Last year Awamaki was able to provide knitting & crocheting workshops to the Awac Phuna and The Puka Rosas artisan cooperatives. Those artisans are now taking and fulfilling orders for Awamaki's most popular knit products, the stuffed animals toys, enhancing their earning potential and equipping them with additional skills for future endeavors.   

Continuing with our focus on sustainability, Sammy, our sustainability designer, is now leading workshops to educate our artisans partners on an environmentally friendly way to stuff the animal toys. All of the textiles utilized in Awamaki’s accessory collection are created with a fringe edge that is discarded in the production of bags and pillow covers. This material is part of all weavings made on the traditional backstrap loom. Using a technique called carding, Sammy developed a way to turn the scraps into a gentle fluff. The process uses a carding brush that breaks down the yarn, making it the perfect non-toxic upcycled stuffing to fill the Awamaki toy collection. 

This zero-waste transition brings Awamaki and the knitters closer to the goal of ensuring a climate-friendly, sustainable production process while strengthening the artisans' earning potential, contributing to their economic independence and stability.  

As we enter into the rainy season in the Andes of Peru, the timing for animal shearing is now. Once a year, during the summer months of December and March, alpacas can be sheared. The rest of the year, the high Andes are too cold for the alpaca to lose their fiber.  Awamaki's partner artisans use the sheared alpaca fiber to spin yarn to knit and weave. We buy this fiber directly from artisan partners who raise alpacas in the remote regions of the Patacancha Valley. Awamaki's local purchase of raw alpaca fiber provides the artisans of this region a reliable additional source of income, and keeps our production process and supply chain as hyperlocal as possible. Purchasing raw fiber also allows us to separate coarse fiber to experiment with creating products made from climate-resilient coarse alpaca fiber.

Finally, to close out 2024, we decided to interview some of our artiisan partners, asking them to share what they are most passionate about and proud of in their work with Awamaki. To hear from the artisans and our team, check out this video. Thank you to you, our donors, for making this work possible!

Links:

• Artisan Interviews