Women who are Leading change in
Petén Itzá
WOMEN & GIRLS AS CHANGEMAKERS
Our Peten Itza Projects begin with the women in our village!
Our first Initiatives
Working together with a group of Indigenous village women we have formed, initiated, organized, and activated our first women led initiative with 14 women ranging from 14- 65 years old over the course of the past year to lead the start up of our Women- Led Ceramics collective.
We have a very high mens migration rate, leaving many women here to raise children alone. Given the majority of women and mothers only have a very basic level of education, the few and limited types of jobs that they could take would be as domestic maids, where they are only permitted to leave for a weekend to see their children every two months or so. Men who have made the illegal migration to the US are only not present in the home anymore, especially the first the first year, while they have pay off their coyote bill, what they are able to send home is not even barely enough for the women and their children to survive on. Many men here have also left the women as single mothers with no support period.
As a given, most men who live here are out in the fields all day working for less than the national minimum wage, and women are running the homestead. The women are desperately seeking needing and wanting more ways to help to increase food on the table, to improve the over all quality of community life and begin to end cycles of poverty.
With women making up 50% of the population we need to create more opportunities and leverage that untapped potential of women as contributors with earning ability, to create new women lead business models, women lead local Industry, gain broader civic participation, increased equal say and voice in civil society, local governance, and Public Policy.
Our Story
For most of the middle aged and younger women, working with clay IS a childhood memory.
Most of our women say their grandmother or their mother made her own household pottery ceramics for the family use; going into great depth of what they had to do, when they were made to help out as kids.
Carrying Traditional Knowledge Forward
Reclaiming the Role of Mayan Women in Ceramics
Phase One- Trainings:
We are supporting with training to gain skill sets, capacity building, provide guidance into entrepreneurial ownership as she advances, encouraging her to design and develop her own unique creative artistic expression, and craft.
Our group members have ongoing access our Shared Community Workshop Studio Ceramics space, Tools and Materials.
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In our group we have a diverse range of ability from beginner to professional. Some of our women have no previous experience working in clay ceramics, but are keen to learn as they are familiar with the process. Those of us who have more experience will provide peer mentorship to those who have less.
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Each woman is to be assisted to become an independent producer or supplier in the style of a cooperative model.
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We will provide guidance but ultimately each woman is responsible for her own time, and will essentially be her own boss. She will advance at her own pace.
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Our Group has been founded taking into consideration that it is essential we are supportive of the fact that most of the women have children and need flexibility with their time to accommodate motherhood demands. We seek to have a working environment where our women are supportive of one another, and are welcome to bring their children with them if needed.
Each woman is being encouraged and incentivised, while even with the most basic level of training she can begin to earn money making household kitchen cookware (that she herself admits she has been buying elsewhere), traditional clay cookware that is commonly used for making tortillas, stews, and beans, over her everyday wood fire.
Our longterm goal with the Cooperative is to offer our women the opportunity to become highly skilled ceramicists. The higher her level of expertise the more money she can make on her products.
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In creating a new women lead local Industry we are positioning and leveraging each one of our women to gain her own financial freedom.
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We are creating a space for women to become empowered, to take charge of their destiny and have ownership of their futures.
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As entrepreneurs it increases not only their household economy, it increases the circulation and retention of our local and regional economy .
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It increases a sense of local pride local and raises the value and self esteem of our women as she realises, experiences, and contributes as an active participant within society.
Our Vision & Goal is to Create a
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“Kitchen, Home and Garden Center”, “Nature based Design”, “EcoLifestyle”, Gift shop and products for daily community household use.
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Ecological sustainable Products & Hand prepared Raw Clays, using Traditional Mayan Methods, hand made, hand processed locally produced ecological kitchen ware, home and garden items, decor and products, focused on sustainability
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We are creating socially and community minded business, Raising ecological awareness , promoting switching from plastics back to natural materials, that are long lasting and lessen environmental impact.