Empowering Women Through Design in Rural Peru

Nestled high in the mountains amongst the clouds, eighteen women work together in our most remote cooperative. During the rainy season, waterlogged roads and steep hills make for a dangerous ride to the community of Kelkanka. With the dry season in sight, we managed the bumpy 2.5-hour drive to host a quality control workshop on weaving, spinning, and natural dying with this secluded community.

When we arrive, the women appear in small groups carrying children bundled on their backs, big bags of yarn, and welcoming smiles. They chat to one another in Quechua before settling on the ground to start the training session. Mercedes Durant, head of our women’s cooperative program, has a packed agenda to work through in the next few hours, before the fast-changing weather will likely force us back down the mountain.

Today’s workshop is about the importance of color and design consistency. Making sure each item matches the last (and the next) is no small thing when the women are dyeing their own yarn and weaving each product by hand. We love the fact that every Awamaki product is unique, but we’re also committed to achieving high standards. Workshops like this help the women learn more about correct tension and precise pattern-matching.

Compañera Isodora, a member of the Kelkanka cooperative, studies the photos of Awamaki’s yoga straps and quickly memorizes their construction and pattern. Suzanne, a production and design intern, commented afterwards that “It’s amazing how many motifs the women here have committed to memory. There are so many possibilities and combinations.” The compañeras draw on an extensive knowledge of intricate designs of local animals and symbolic shapes when they weave their own clothing, especially their brightly colored mantas (shawls) that are iconic to this region. Those designs are handed down through generations, as daughters watch their mothers and skillfully learn by doing. To pick up the new Awamaki designs from studying a photograph takes this skill to a new level, as the women transform their existing knowledge of traditional shapes into new pattern combinations that draw on trends and fashions beyond Peru.

The women divide into groups – each responsible for a different colorway – and after a quick comparison of yarns to make sure they have the right shades, they get to work implementing the advice from Mercedes. Two metal stakes are tapped into the ground using a large rock, and a tape measure is used to determine the right length of the weaving for the yoga strap. A piece of wood is placed between the two stakes at both ends, and the women start passing yarn back and forth to each other, carefully counting out the number of threads of each color and checking the tension of every thread.

As she works, Isodora keeps one eye on her small daughter, playing at her side, whilst her compañeras monitor nearby animals that must be shooed away. Despite the distractions around them, the women stay focused, illustrating their great pride for their work and determination to produce a quality product. Mothers and daughters like cooperative members Eustakia and Valentina work and learn together – it’s remarkable to think that they will also be able to pass this new knowledge to future generations. In doing so, they will each earn income for their families, strengthen their sense of community, and gain independence.

We hope to soon begin construction on an artisan center for the weavers of Kelkanka. This center will give the women a dry, clean, lit space to spin, dye, and weave yarn away from the distractions of everyday village life. It will make a huge difference to their working environment, in turn allowing them to create pieces faster and to even higher standards. It will take them one step closer to making their own business relationships.

It’s thanks to support like yours that we can host these workshops and work with the women on Kelkanka to enhance their skills. If you’d like to continue your support and help us construct the weaving center please donate today.

All photos taken by Emily Hlavac Green, sponsored by Photographers Without Borders.

The women weavers of Kelkanka know how to color pop. Although a backdrop of lush green mountains and startling blue skies is hard to beat, the bright red colors, complicated beadwork, and woven motifs characteristic of their dress make them the unequivocal stand outs.

Even though the weavers of Kelkanka know to make a splash with color, we wanted to introduce the powerful dynamics behind color usage. Culturally, their preferences for color combinations are much different than what might appeal to potential customers – not everyone can pull off a rainbow skirt with geometric designs. Additionally, most weavers use synthetic dyes for their personal clothing because the dyes last longer and stay brighter in their harsh outdoor environment. In contrast, the woven products they make for Awamaki and tourists use natural dyes, which are more muted but celebrate traditional techniques. To tie these ideas together, one of our visiting designers, Celeste Ramos, organized a workshop on color theory.

When we arrived in Kelkanka, the meeting space was locked so we had to wait for the key. This didn’t stop the ladies from getting started without us – they excitedly gathered around the prepared posters, chattering quickly in Quechua while pointing at the examples with their Andean phuskas. The level of excitement rose a notch when we pulled out the sheets of paper, packs of crayons, and bags of fruit.

Mercedes, head of the women’s cooperative program, started the workshop with some fun warm-up exercises (it is cold in Kelkanka!). On her command the ladies moved about the meeting room waving their arms and switching seats. After the laughter faded, we got down to business explaining what the attention-grabbing colorful diagrams meant. Celeste and Mercedes worked together to cover concepts of primary colors, secondary colors, cool and warm colors, and color harmony. The diagrams were passed around the room as were Awamaki products illustrating the concepts. The women were extremely interested in examining the products and quickly arranged themselves in groups to examine them. Since Kelkanka is our furthest cooperative – it takes several hours to reach the community – the weavers rarely get to see their weavings incorporated into finished bags and purses.

The second part of the workshop was a crowd-pleaser because the women put what they had just learned into practice. We passed out blank color wheels and packs of crayons and tasked the group with re-creating the various color concepts. Interestingly, for the wheel of secondary colors some women chose to mix two colors to make a secondary color, while others sought out the secondary color from the crayon pack. Those that mixed the colors showed that they understood the color combination rules we had just covered.

The most difficult part of the workshop came last. We tested the weavers by asking them to hold up fruits that corresponded with the right color concept. The concepts of cool and warm colors were particularly hard for the weavers to remember. This abstract idea did not translate well into Quechua because of the language’s different understanding of the world and the natural environment. It seems silly to assign colors a temperature if you really think about it! Regardless, we reviewed the concepts one more time and then descended into a rainbow fruit feast with the women and their accompanying children.

Immediately following the workshop, Mercedes was skeptical if the women absorbed any of the concepts. She believed that they had fun but thought the ideas were too theoretical to really stick with them. However, a few months have passed since the workshop, and at a recent staff meeting Mercedes announced her desire to continue it with the other cooperatives.

She said, “The compañeras are doing a good job with their weavings. They are completing them on time and are heading in a good direction. I can see that they learned from the workshop on color, it is apparent in their recent designs.”

We are excited to lead the color workshops in the remaining cooperatives, and will update you all on their progress. Thanks to your generous support, we can keep carrying out these fun yet informative workshops!