Capacity-building for rural women artisans in Peru

Hello all and thank you for your support so far this year!

In exciting news, we have been working with the artisans to launch our first new products since the pandemic. The Allpa throw blanket and accompanying pillows is unlike anything we have created for export before. To create this line, we drew on the artisans’ own alpaca herds, which they and their families sheared. WIht that raw fleece, our Puska Tika cooperative spun the raw alpaca fleece into the unique, chunky, handspun alpaca yarn that we have developed with them over hte years, which is softer, thicker and more rustic than the very thin, tight yarn that is usually spun for weaving. Once the yarn was spun, we dyed it using all natural dye plants and cochineal,  including a range of reds and grays, and then our Awac Phuna and Kelkanca cooperatives wove the blankets and the pillow covers on the backstrap loom. Because of its size, the blanket is made up of two pieces joined together with a unique Andean embroidered stitch down the center.  The blanket is new to our online store, and new products in this line will target our online store customers specifically, allowing them to open new markets. 

In addition to the new throws, we have launched a new collection for our wholesale customers, including a new pom-pom bucket bag and updated versions of many favorites, like our keychains and our mini messenger bags. We are so happy to be able to be working with our artisan partners again on new products. 

Our artisan partners in the Awc Phuna cooperative are working hard to prepare their community for visits from tourists. They have selected land and they are working to build a center where they can meet, weave, hold trainings and receive tourists. This center was supposed to be built in 2020, and we are so joyful to be finally progressing with them towards their dream of hosting tourists in their village. 

Finally, we have also run a series of tourism workshops, including a field trip to visit a successful women-led tourism cooperative in Laguna Piuray, outside Cusco. Their hosts showed them the demonstration they do for tourists, gave them advice about hosting tourists, and shared their experiences welcoming tourists to their community.

Links:

• Video of Our Tourism Cooperative Exchange Day (via TikTok)
• Artisans Visit Laguna Piuray on the Field Trip (via TikTok)
• Handspun Alpaca Throw on our online store

Hello all, 

It feels so good to be busy again! These days, we have projects humming in tourism, handmade product sales, and food relief, and we are starting to accept volunteers again!

For the past few months we have been busy working with our partner tourism cooperative in Patacancha, called Awac Phuna. Awac Phuna was slated to begin tourism trainings and weaving center construction in early 2020. Funding for those workshops was diverted to food relief. Now, two years later, we are working with them to pick up where we left off.  

As tourism begins to come back, we have re-started tourism training with Awac Phuna so they are better equipped to welcome tourists to their community. Our tourism trainings always include sessions on market understanding–for example, why do tourists visit the community and what are they interested in learning about? Why does a tourist choose to stay in a homestay instead of a hotel? Many of our artisan partners initially think they need to replicate a hotel and restaurant experience in their homes, and market understanding training aims to show them the perspective of a tourist who has chosen a community visit and homestay. We also cover how to prepare their home and cook for tourists, for example, making sure water is fully boiled. Artisans also practice demonstrating different aspects of the weaving process and teaching tourists to weave a bracelet.

Alongside these workshops, we are working with Awac Phuna to create a small space where they can meet, weave and host visitors, so they have a space to grow their business. 

In other exciting news, we are about to launch our first new products since the pandemic! We have been working hard with the artisans from the Awac Phuna and Kelkanca cooperatives to create throw blankets. This is our most-requested product and has been a dream of ours for years. These throw blankets, and their accompanying pillows, have an incredible story. They start with alpaca shearing in the Patacancha Valley, from alpacas that our artisan partners herd. We buy that fiber and hand it off to our group of expert spinners, who spin a chunky, unique alpaca yarn. We’ve been using this in our handknit accessories for years, but we’ve never dyed it (or any alpaca yarn!) before. We then dye the yarn with natural dyes, using cochineal beetle, quico flowers, tara seed pods, and local molle tree peppercorns to make the reds, pinks, golds, purple and gray of the new items. After we dye the yarn, we worked with our artisan partners to develop samples, swapping design inspiration and creating several iterations of each product. We chose final designs together and now the new throws and pillowcases are in production and being photographed, ready for launch later this month. Due to the complexity of the production process, we are creating only a limited number of these to start out. Stay tuned on our Instagram and Facebook for the launch! 

Finally, we continue to make our monthly food deliveries, which will carry on through the end of the year. The recovery in Peru, especially to the tourism industry, has been slow and bumpy. Rising food and gas prices there have put an additional squeeze on families. We will continue to run our food relief program until we are all back on our feet. We are grateful to you and to many generous donors for making this possible.

Thank you everyone who has made our survival and recovery possible with your generosity.