By Jackie Gilbert | Executive Director
Time is flying by! In less than two months, we’ll celebrate the graduation of this year’s Yala’yalaa School for Women’s Empowerment. Meanwhile, we’re preparing for our biggest fundraiser of the year in Santa Barbara, California. The funds we raise will help determine how many new Wayuu artisans we can welcome into our collective in January 2027.
The Yala’yalaa School continues to offer five workshops each month to Wayuu women from more than a dozen remote communities. Alongside our regular programming, here are a few highlights since our last report.
Learning Syntropic Agriculture
In August, we sent our Program Coordinator, Paula Restrepo, and one of our most dedicated weavers, Lilibeth Tiller, to a four-day immersive masterclass on syntropic agriculture and regenerative soil techniques. The masterclass was organized by Jaguar Siembra, agroforestry experts who work closely with Kogui and Arhuaco communities in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, approximately two hours west of our work in La Guajira.
This training was an important first step toward launching our regenerative agriculture pilot project, which will explore how to grow wild cotton alongside fruit trees, vegetables, and other complementary crops in La Guajira’s dry tropical forest. Our goal is to develop a low-water, regenerative model for growing cotton locally while restoring soil health and improving water retention on land that has been deforested and heavily degraded.
During the masterclass, Paula and Lilibeth learned about species selection and succession – choosing plants that grow well together and help restore soil fertility over time – as well as stratification, which involves varying tree heights to create a diverse, multilayered ecosystem. They also learned how to make biochar, a long-lasting, charcoal-based soil amendment that can improve soil quality.
Over time, we hope to adapt the techniques tested through this pilot and introduce them within the Wayuu communities we work with. Artisans in our collective will have access to garden kits containing fencing to keep goats out, seeds, and tools to grow food, wild cotton, and medicinal plants right outside their homes. This initiative will support food security, restore ancestral relationships with cotton cultivation, and create new opportunities for sustainable livelihoods.
Finishing the Classroom at La Casa Colectiva!
Together with our Colombian partners at Fundación Talento Colectivo, we are helping develop La Casa Colectiva, an intercultural education and community center in La Guajira that will serve as a permanent home for the Yala’yalaa School.
The classroom, partially constructed last year, is now complete! A water cistern is expected to be finished before the end of the year, and construction of eco-cabins made from natural and recycled materials is planned for January 2027. Future plans include an artisan store where Wayuu weavers can sell their work directly to tourists and visitors, a restaurant open to the public on weekends, composting toilets, solar panels, Starlink internet, and a thriving permaculture garden.
This locally led center is an important part of our long-term vision of a vibrant community hub that can eventually sustain itself through income generated by the cabins, restaurant, and artisan store. By creating a permanent home for education, cultural exchange, and economic opportunity, we are investing in infrastructure that can continue serving Wayuu communities for years to come.
Water Wisdom Workshop
To inaugurate the completed classroom at La Casa Colectiva, we welcomed 25 Wayuu women for a Water Wisdom Workshop led by guest lecturer Zarinha Manotas, a specialist in water education for Wayuu communities. Participants learned about safe water storage, waterborne pathogens, hygiene, and responsible water stewardship.
This was the first in a series of workshops for artisans in our collective who are interested in receiving a household water tank. These sessions will help families understand how to store and manage their water safely as we work to improve their access to clean drinking water.
At One Thread Collective, we began this year with a goal of helping the 12 Wayuu communities we work with gain access to safer drinking water. In March, we took our first step in partnership with California-based Water Access To All, distributing long-lasting, easy-to-use Sawyer water filters to more than 100 Wayuu women in our weaving collective. Preliminary testing revealed E. coli contamination in every community water source we tested.
The filters worked! Diarrhea incidence was nearly eliminated among the families using them. But as we listened to the women, we learned that contamination was only part of the problem. Many families struggled to access water in the first place. Women described walking long distances to collect water, even when the sources were contaminated, or spending a significant portion of their income purchasing potable water.
Water access is a major challenge in La Guajira, and water scarcity is especially acute in Wayuu communities. A study cited by Colombia’s Constitutional Court found that 97.7% of traditional Wayuu communities lacked access to an aqueduct, while 90% of people consumed untreated water.
The women themselves helped identify the next step: large water storage tanks placed outside family homes. These tanks will allow families to purchase water from cistern trucks in larger quantities and store it safely at home. Rather than repeatedly walking long distances or paying more to purchase small amounts of water, families will have a more reliable supply close at hand.
We are now raising funds to purchase and distribute tanks, prioritizing households with the most urgent needs. Our first priority is families with access to fewer than 20 liters of water per person per day. Next month, we plan to expand the initiative to include Wayuu mothers whose families have access to 20–50 liters per person per day.
With the support of our donors and partners, we are working alongside Wayuu women to address both immediate needs and the deeper challenges affecting their communities. From women's empowerment and regenerative agriculture to education and water security, each initiative reflects our commitment to solutions shaped by the women themselves and designed to create lasting change.
The United Nations Association Peace Prize
On a final note, I was honored to receive the Peace Prize from the United Nations Association of Santa Barbara, which is awarded annually to an individual whose work advances peace, human rights, and sustainablity. You can check out my speech from the event here via this Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ddu4NIty8uV/
We couldn't do it without your support! Thank you for your solidarity with the Wayuu women of One Thread Collective!
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