Empowering Mayan women through ancient textiles

This quarter, as part of the Empowering Mayan Women Through Ancient Textiles project, a mobile photography workshop was held to help participants learn how to use this tool as a means to tell their own stories from their perspective, document their creative processes, and strengthen their sales strategies through authentic images that reflect their everyday reality.

During August, a four-session photography workshop was carried out with the participation of seven women from different communities in Chiapas. The process was facilitated by a photographer with extensive experience in documenting cultural and community processes across Mexico and Latin America. Her participatory approach created a sensitive and accessible space for participants to approach photography from their own perspectives.

Using their daily environments and available resources, the women explored the use of natural light to create portraits, capture their artisanal processes, and document their products. The facilitator’s technical and creative guidance was key in translating photographic tools into practical and meaningful resources, strengthening their visual communication, observation, and leadership skills. This process encouraged the participants’ autonomy to tell their own stories and improve the visual presentation of their work, contributing to the visibility and commercialization of the handcrafted products made by the artisan groups they collaborate with.

The workshop combined both theoretical and practical sessions:

• Participants learned basic concepts of composition, light, focus, and visual storytelling adapted for mobile photography, considering local conditions.
  
  
• Each participant practiced capturing images of her surroundings, textiles, workshops, and everyday work moments.
  
  
• Collective visual analysis exercises were conducted to reflect on how each image communicates a story.
  
  
• Personalized mentoring was provided to improve framing, the use of natural light, and basic editing with mobile apps.
  
  
• To ensure full participation, support was provided with internet access, device charging, extra batteries, and a safe space for the photography practices.

The workshop generated several transformations:

• Participants began to see their phone cameras as tools of empowerment, not merely as technological devices.
  
  
• Many captured images of their looms, hands, and symbolic details, which they began to incorporate into their product catalogs and social media.
  
  
• Some decided to visually share their daily lives and creative processes, strengthening emotional connections with potential clients.
  
  
• One participant shared (anonymously): “Now I can show what I make with my own hands, the way I see it,” reflecting a shift from being a passive subject to becoming a visual storyteller.
  
  

This visual component reinforces our philosophy that women can narrate their own processes in their own voices — and that holds power.

We observed that learning to use a phone camera is not only a technical skill but also a way to dignify one’s gaze, reclaim identity, and build self-defined narratives. In the coming months, we plan to:

• Support participants in creating small visual portfolios of their textile collections.
  
  
• Integrate these images into the project’s digital sales platforms and social media.
  
  
• Design advanced workshops on mobile editing and visual storytelling.
  
  
• Encourage community or virtual exhibitions where participants present their own photographs and textiles.

We deeply appreciate the enthusiastic participation of all the women involved and the support of the team that made this visual workshop possible. Thanks to GlobalGiving and everyone who supports this project, we continue to weave textiles — and our own powerful, dignified, and authentic perspectives.

Links:

• NGOimpacto

Thanks to your support, NGOimpacto is now preparing a new phase of our mentorship model with Indigenous women artisans in Los Altos de Chiapas. This process is not only about increasing income — it's about cultivating long-term leadership, self-management, and collective voice.

As we reflect on the earlier stages of this journey, we’re preparing for a new cycle of support rooted in the lived experiences of the women themselves, reaffirming their roles as economic, cultural, and community leaders. Our mentorship model has proven to be a powerful tool — grounded in cultural relevance and peer learning — and we’re now working to make it even stronger.

In this new stage, NGOimpacto is redesigning the structure of the model to make it more sustainable and co-owned. Women who participated in earlier cycles will take on the role of facilitators, sharing knowledge and strengthening leadership within their groups. We’re also developing collective evaluation and planning tools to ensure the process grows from within, shaped by the needs and visions of the women themselves.

Our goal is clear: to ensure that each woman is not only a participant, but a co-creator — of her income, her leadership, and her shared future. And all of this is possible thanks to the community we’re building with you.

Thank you for believing in the power of ancestral knowledge and collective leadership. Your support allows us to keep building spaces where women grow — with voice, with vision, and with dignity.

Links:

• NGOimpacto