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'Artisan Market'

Bazaar of Guatemalan Handcrafts! Help Education And More help the women's groups sell more artisan crafts!

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Fair Trade Artisan Handcrafts

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Artisan Groups

The artisan weavings and handcrafts that are sold by Education And More are made by several artisan groups in the villages around Lake Atitlan, Guatemala.

We have formed a partnership with these groups and work with them using Fair Trade Guidelines as the principals of business.

We guarantee:

• that a Fair Trade price has been given to the producer group after much discussion with the entire group to determine a fair wage.
• to pay our producers on time
• to give advance credit if needed
• to offer educational classes to producers in areas requested such as: management skills, English classes, business, health, etc.

Every time you purchase one of our Fair Trade handcrafts it makes a difference -- a real impact on the life of the artisan producer!

Learn more about Fair Trade

Meet Our Groups!

Mujeres Artesanas La Voz Que Clama En El Desierto is a group of 10 women in San Juan La Laguna doing traditional backstrap weaving. They are wives and widows of small coffee farmers and many of them were devastated by Hurricane Stan in 2005. One woman lost her home and everything in it and many lost all their coffee trees in the mudslides that hit San Juan during Hurricane Stan.

The women do beautiful weaving and many are hoping to learn to sew, as soon as the group can afford a sewing machine, so they can make more products with their weavings. They make many weavings out of naturally dyed yarns; dye that has been extracted locally from plants and bark.

The women use their earnings to help educate their children.

Grupo Ajbatz' Bal' is a group of 27 women in San Juan La Laguna who have been organized for 4 years as a coopertive of women doing traditional backstrap weaving. The photo above shows the director, Ana, hanging the bundles of recently dyed cotton yarn in order to dry them. This group does not have a store to sell their handcrafts but use a room in Ana's house to display them.

They are trying to earn money to be able to purchase more equipment for the yarn dyeing process and to improve the marketing of their handcrafts.

148 people benefit from the earnings of this group.They work hard to help support their families and especially send their children to school.

Associacion Mujeres Artesanas Ixkoqa Tzolojya - Mujeres Analizadoras are a group of 26 women from the village of El Tablon. They make traditional backstrap weavings but also have mastered the art of making beautiful jewelry and handcrafts from beads.

This group makes most of our jewelry and we are helping them to design more jewelry pieces that sell well around the world.

There are many widowed women and single mothers in this group and they use their earnings to support their children but they often need help with getting an education for their children. 66 people benefit from the efforts of this group.

The Grupo Artesanias Tzaput are from the village of Choacruz in Guatemala and include 17 women doing weaving on traditional backstrap looms and also weaving on a floor pedal loom. They also are learning the art of jewelry making to help supplement the sales of their weavings.

These women speak a Mayan dialect called Kakchiquel and only a few can speak Spanish. Most cannot afford to send their children to school without help to pay the school fees and buy simple school supplies.

We are working with this group to develop new handcrafts of their woven fabrics. 84 people benefit from their work.

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