By Karla Aguerrebere | Project Leader
Thanks to everyone who has generously donated through GlobalGiving. Your contributions have been essential in making possible this deep and collective journey of self-discovery, creativity, and empowerment for over 240 Tsotsil and Tseltal Indigenous women from Los Altos de Chiapas. Your support helped us take a decisive step toward building a shared vision of Lekil Kuxlejal—harmonious and dignified living.
We also warmly acknowledge the allies and organizations who continue to walk with us, complementing this work and strengthening the long-term sustainability of the project.
Over the past two years, we implemented the Dreams and Visions curriculum, designed to help women identify their personal and collective dreams, recognize their strengths and challenges, and build their own pathways forward—rooted in their territories, languages, and ancestral knowledge. This process was led by NGOimpacto’s Human Development team and culminated in a collective book that captures stories, drawings, photos, and testimonies from the women who are co-leaders of this textile movement.
This is not the end—it’s a beginning: the first creative outcome from this process was the “Ceremonial Dress” presented at Vancouver Fashion Week 2025, as part of the collection by Juxta, the social enterprise co-owned by Indigenous women. Made collaboratively by women from at least six municipalities, this piece reflects not only the rich techniques of their territories, but also their right to imagine and shape a dignified, self-determined future.
The dress required 956 hours of collaborative work and brings together a wide range of ancestral techniques: waist loom weaving from Aldama, intricate embroidery from Huixtán and Aguacatenango, hand-pleating, pompons crafted in Aldama, and hand stitching by women from Larráinzar and Tenejapa. What makes it even more meaningful is that the full-body cape features symbols, motifs and embroidered fragments drawn directly from the book Dreams and Visions — a way for the women to translate their reflections, desires, and collective goals into a wearable expression of identity.
Each textile and stitch embodies the voices, stories, and creative power of the women who co-own Juxta.
This ceremonial piece is the first step toward a new collective collection that will be designed by the women themselves—members and co-founders of Juxta—based on the dreams they shared during the Dreams and Visions journey.
Many women have expressed a desire to continue creating textiles that reflect their stories, connection to the land, and vision for the future. Dreams and Visions has become a strategic compass guiding where they want to go—as creators, community leaders, and co-owners of their social enterprise.
Today, we are weaving a different kind of story. One where design doesn’t come from outside but is born from within: from words, reflection, memory, and shared joy.
Thank you for walking alongside us. Every donation is a stitch in this fabric of autonomy, justice, and beauty.
Dreams we walk, visions we weave.
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By Karla Aguerrebere | Project Leader
By Karla Aguerrebere | Project Leader
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