Our Artisan Partners

Sharing the Dream in Guatemala works with a variety of wonderful partner artisan groups. Here are some of them.

Artesa

Artesa is composed of four craftsmen who work in Santiago Atitlán. Using their skills, they create traditionally carved wooden ornaments, puzzle boxes, wine holders, and an array of decorative wood pieces. Their intricate designs are used from leftover pieces of mahogany, teak, ebony, cypress and other local woods from merchants and carpenters in the community. In addition to their own craft they also work with several young men from Santiago to help them continue their schooling.​

Artesanos de San Juan

Artesanos de San Juan began in 1988, becoming the first cooperative in San Juan. They use only natural dyes and their backstrap and foot looms to create a variety of products from scarves and bags to clothing and decorative items for the house. Sharing the Dream works with this group to create beautiful backstrap fabric that can be incorporated into our coconut sandals.

​Asociación Maya de Desarrollo

​Asociación Maya de Desarrollo is an artisan cooperative in Sololá that began in the mid-1980s to create economic opportunity for backstrap weavers, warpers, dyers, and sewers. The group hand dyes their rayon chenille, bamboo, and cotton yarns before weaving them into scarves, shawls, and ponchos. This group is composed of more than 70 women who live all over the highlands and do the weaving in their homes.

Women of the Asociación Maya de Desarrollo demonstrate how they prepare the thread for dying and weaving.

Casa del Tejido

Casa del Tejido is an artisan cooperative in San Juan La Laguna, Sololá. The group utilizes a variety of vegetables, herbs, and other plants in its techniques of the natural dye process. Products created by the group range from scarves and bags to placemats and kitchen towels. 

A Casa del Tejido artisan twists the cotton onto a spool.

Copavic

Copavic was founded in 1976 in Cantel, Quetzaltenango to provide an income for young people during the war. This artisan-owned cooperative presently has 20 members and provides work for up to 38 artisans during production.  Founded by a glass blower after the factory where he worked closed, the workshop was built little by little by the founding artisans. The factory produces hand blown, recycled glass products which are sold by fair trade organizations around the world. The glass is found locally, crushed, and then recycled. Their glass products are beautiful but due to the lack of a market, the men can only work a few months per year. Sharing the Dream is working with the group to create new designs and broaden their market.

A Copavic glass blower creates a handmade glass piece

Dulce Hogar

​Dulce Hogar is comprised of three different artisan groups consisting of 32 Mam women who live in Comitancillo, San Marcos. The department of San Marcos is situated near the Mexican border and is one of the coldest and most arid regions because of the high elevation. It is also home to some of the poorest people in the country who must leave their homes from October to February because the dry season doesn’t produce enough crops for them to live. To make a living the whole family travels in crowded buses or trucks to harvest coffee and sugar on the coast. For this reason, many children are not present for the beginning of the school year and are either forced to repeat grades or end their studies. Comitancillo is not a very pretty region in Guatemala and there is a lack of NGOs (Non-Government Organizations) that work in this community. Dulce Hogar provides another way of generating income through the production of crafts and textiles. They do backstrap and foot loom weaving and crocheting.  Sharing the Dream in Guatemala has worked with this group since 1999, helping to build a sewing center and provide sewing machines, two weaving centers and foot looms, and sewing and computer lessons. This was done in part with a generous donation from a church in South Dakota. In this community, we have done quite a few projects. Sharing the Dream has worked with the community on pig, chicken, and water projects. The women in the groups can now help provide for their families so many of them do not have to go to the coast to work, and their children can go to school.

Dulce Hogar artisans create crocheted toys and clothing.

El Bosque

El Bosque was founded in 2000 to preserve the natural pine forests surrounding San Pedro Pinula, Jalapa in eastern Guatemala. The group uses the natural resources available for sustainable economic development. The Ch'orti' and Pocomam people have traditionally lived on the cultivation of corn and beans, yet this requires clearing pine forests. The Bosque Cooperative tries to avoid this problem by providing communities the opportunity to earn money through pine needle basketry, carpentry, and rabbit breeding. Through a partnership with local forestry authorities they are also working on reforestation and fire prevention programs. Sharing the Dream works with this group on design and marketing to help them promote their products.

Elder Center Bead Group

​Elder Center Bead Group in Santiago Atitlán supports not only the young women beaders, but it also supports indigenous Mayan elders. The profits from the jewelry sales pay for the women’s wages, the director’s salary, and the rent and utilities for the Elder Center, which provides 60 elders with food and medical care. This contributes to the fair trade philosophy as the women earn a high wage, and it also contributes to Sharing the Dream’s goal of fostering local sustainability. Sharing the Dream works with the group on design and creating high quality products.

The ladies of the bead group work on projects on the balcony of the Elder Center in Santiago.

Las Estrellas

Las Estrellas consists of eight Kaqchiquel Mayan weavers from the rural Chuacruz community. The group began in the early 1980s in order to support the widows who lost their husbands during the Civil War. In 1991 they began receiving support from Mayan Hands and later they started participating in workshops presented by Sharing the Dream’s Artisan Development Project. These provided the women with the skills and knowledge to create high quality products to sell on the fair trade market. Today they work on the backstrap and foot looms to create unique and colorful scarves. Sharing the Dream has provided the foot loom and done roof and floor projects in this community.

Women of the Las Estrellas group stand before their beautifully woven scarves.

Los Cuchareros

​Los Cuchareros is composed of seven men who make wooden spoons in San Lucas Tolimán, a small community along the shores of Lake Atitlán. The men begin with a machete and scraps of coffee, gravillea, ebony and cedar wood that they get from merchants and carpenters or gather from the skirt of the volcano. After shaping and sanding the spoons, they polish and finish their work with beeswax and place the products over an open fire for a few minutes to bring out the wood's contrasting colors. Los Cuchareros uses 25% of their profits to help support elders in their community.

A Los Cuchareros artisan crafts a wooden spoon by chiseling out its shape.

Mayan Ke

​Mayan Ke is a ceramic group based in San Antonio, Polopó that creates a variety of hand painted products, from coffee mugs to teapots to decorative crosses. The group often makes their own brushes so that they can paint the tiny intricate work on their products. They sell their products downtown in Panajachel, Guatemala. Their items are dishwasher and microwave safe.

Ruth and Naomi

Ruth and Naomi, named after two widows from the Bible, began in 1986 following the bombing of their community, Chontalá, near Chichicastenango. In order to generate income for the widows of the Civil War, Diego Chicoj, a Methodist pastor and tailor, decided to create a market for the women’s weavings. First, he worked with the women to create an array of products using their talent and then he taught their sons how to sew the final products. After he found scholarships, he provided the boys with a place to stay in Chichi and a place where they could finish high school in the evenings. Over the years the women received improvements to their homes and were able to send their children to school with their increased income. Today, Ruth and Naomi contribute to various artisan groups and have nine young men who sew all of their products.

Sharing the Dream has worked with Ruth and Naomi for many years and has contributed to many projects including: a showroom for their products, a children’s nutritional center, a chicken and stove project, and school scholarships.

San Jacinto's
​Craftswomen's Association — AMASAJA

San Jacinto’s Craftswomen’s Association- AMASAJA consists of 26 women who work with palm and coconut tree leaves in Chiquimula, a particularly hot region in the eastern part of Guatemala.  Traditionally, the people use the palm fronds to make hats, brooms and mats, but these products don't sell at a high price. In order to improve their income, they attended a workshop in basket and box making and have since been able to sell their decorative products at a profitable price. The women hope to continue growing their business and one day have their own store.

AMASAJA craftswomen create baskets from palm fronds and hope to one day have their own store.

Saq'onak

Saq’onak is comprised of 60 women from five communities in Tamahú, Alta Verapaz. After receiving extensive training in quality control from Sharing the Dream, the women are now producing a range of high quality products including: woven textiles done on the backstrap and foot looms, crocheted products, pine baskets, and designs made from gourds. Due to the remote location and poor infrastructure, it was almost impossible for residents to attend school, which led to a low literacy rate. Now that they receive a higher income they are able to send their children to school and pay for their school supplies.

Terra Coco

​Terra Coco consists of eight artisans from Escuintla who sell handmade sandals made with 100% natural products: coconut fiber, natural latex, and hemp fiber. This group seeks to create jobs in their community that generate a sustainable income through projects that benefit the environment by repurposing and recycling local materials. The area is known for its coconuts, so this group processes them and uses the dirt and compost for community gardens. They then use the strands of coconut to make the bottom of the sandals. Sharing the Dream has worked with Terra Coco and the group Artesanos de San Juan to combine their beautiful products, making products that are natural, comfortable, and environmentally safe.

Tz'ikin Jaay

Tz’ikin Jaay, meaning “Hope of Birds” in the Maya language Tzu’tujil, was founded in 1990 to support the widows of the 36-year civil war in Guatemala. Tragedy struck in 2005 when the community, Panabaj, was destroyed by Hurricane Stan. Today, 18 women continue to work with backstrap and foot looms to support their families and provide a better future for their children. Throughout the year the women attend workshops to learn more about marketing, quality control, and community development. In conjunction with Mayan Hands and Sharing the Dream, many of the artisans’ children receive scholarships to attend school. This is also the community where Sharing the Dream has its Elder Center and has provided land for two different schools. 

A backstrap loom is the traditional tool of Mayan weavers such as this Tz'ikin Jaay artisan.

UPAVIM

​UPAVIM was established in 1988 as a Healthy Baby Program in the shanty area of “La Esperanza,” Zone 12 of Guatemala City by Barbara Lorraine, a nurse from the United States. After working with the local women, Barbara realized that the women not only suffered from extreme poverty, lack of formal education, and lack of water supply, they also had alcoholic husbands or sons involved in drug trafficking. With little to no help from their husbands, the women were left to support their large families. As a result, an income generating project was founded which involved training the women to make crafts using traditional Guatemalan textiles to sell on the fair trade market. UPAVIM is now one of the biggest and most successful artisan groups in the country. It continues to create new projects for the women and their families including a primary school, nursery, clinic, bakery, soy milk production and cheese project. Today, the women not only have a source of income, they also receive training and education.    

Sharing the Dream in Guatemala partnered with UPAVIM for many projects, including its biggest, raising $15,000 in one year to buy the land and building next to the original building.

Women work in the UPAVIM sewing room in Guatemala City.