Gender Equality Chile Project #25365

Weaving & Empowerment Workshops for Mapuche Women

by Fundacion Chol - Chol

Project Report | Jan 6, 2017
Natural Dye Workshops!

By Jack Hanington | Project helper, fundraiser

1 Diciembre- Second Workshop

The second class of the course started again with spinning as some women had not been able to attend the last class. This is an inevitable difficulty for this project- all the women live in the countryside and have houses that they need to look after, in some cases, further domestic issues inhibit the women’s freedom to participate. The challenge is maintaining an equal development despite the unequal attendance.

The topic of the logo of the group arose, some excellent and some silly ideas came up! One was the profile of a Mapuche woman’s face with the background as the Mapuche symbol of the Rayen, flower. Another was a team shot of the young women walking sassily towards the camera.

Isabel, ‘la profe’, and some women left to to search for leaves to dye with from around the local area, they returned with maqui and nogal leaves from the garden of the kind head teacher of the San Francisco school. In the end, to the disappointment of the women, we ran out of time to dye, however that leaves us with a definite plan for the next class on Monday.

5 Diciembre- Third Workshop

On a cloudy Monday morning, there is no better way to forget about the grey skies than by participating in a dying workshop with natural dyes. One women brought from home the first example of natural dying of the day, it was outstanding, she had dyed two bulks of wool, one with a yellow dye using onion peel and the other using leaves from a peach tree, making a beautiful calm orange color.

We worked in a shed next to San Francisco school, the natural materials needed to dye surrounded us, as always in the Araucanian countryside. A large pot of water was being heated in the centre of the patio and while it boiled we went to look for more leaves in the neighbouring garden. We found more maqui and nogal leaves and the women started to break the plants into smaller pieces, wetting them in cold water to loosen the fibres of the leaves.

The water was boiled and ready, the first natural dyes entered the pot and the women took out the bunches of wool that they had made into yarn at home, dipping them and mixing them in with the maqui leaves.

Dyes used Colour made

Maqui leaves Green

Leaves from walnut tree Grey/Green

Matico flower (orange ball buddleja) Yellow

After the wool had been left to brew in the pot for a while it was taken out and hung on nearby fences to dry out.

The women seemed content with their dying workshop, some asked for the opportunity to dye more at home. They lack pots big enough to boil the water with the natural dyes and dip the wool into, this is a material that we could buy with the donations from Global Giving to give the women more independence in the production of their textiles.

We have seen the process from start to finish from thick white wool to tightly wrapped, brightly coloured yarn. The women are now ready to continue repeating this unique, skilled process and make garments for their families and to be sold, creating economic opportunities and preserving the Mapuche techniques.

This is just the beginning of the women's journeys to becoming sustainable artisans but their progress so far is inspiring. Next workshops begin in March. Thank you for your support and see you then!

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Dec 19, 2016
Workshops Begin!

By Jack Hanington | Project helper, fundraiser

24 Noviembre

Ten months have passed since the women finished their last workshops, on the site of the San Fransisco School, where their children attend. In the first workshops the women worked with felt-work which is easier to learn than weaving, and thus a good starting point, the women participated successfully in the course, creating high quality products with their own designs. Unfortunately, the fund for prime materials ran out, giving the women an unwanted break from the workshops, leaving them with their claustrophobic lives in the ‘campo’, countryside.

Now, thanks to new financial backing from donors on GlobalGiving, a spinning and dying course has begun that will last for four workshops of four hours with ‘la profe’ Isabel Currivil.

The workshops could not be in better hands. She has run workshops for many loving decades, in places from prisons to classrooms, offering the new skill of weaving and therefore new opportunities to communities.

The first workshop focused on the delicate technique of spinning. Looking around the room, the women’s hands were moving like spiders (an animal synonymous with Mapuche weaving mythology), separating the thick wool to be spun on the spindles that were rapidly rotating around the floor.

While they worked, the women enjoyed each others company, catching up after so much time without a workshop. One woman declared that these workshops were some of the only moments of pure laughter in her life.

It was not always like that however. Susana, the supervisor of the project, says that when they first participated in the workshops the women were far more timid, with the chemistry they show these days, it is impossible to imagine the women in silence.

“The idea is to work alone in your houses but come together as a unit when you meet up.” Isabel summarised what it means to be a group of weavers. You could see that the women were a solid group, united by the similarities they share of being mothers to the kids that were playing in the playground outside and by their shared passion of learning Mapuche textile techniques.

All the participants left with their own kilo of white wool, ready to continue working at home, the homework was to create a big ball of fine thread around their spindles to be dyed during the next workshop.

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