Empowering Women Through Design in Rural Peru

Kelkanka, a small village high in the Andes, is an amazing place to be able to visit, not only for its views, but for its people. Our partner cooperative, Wakanquilla, has recently finished building their new artisan center in the center of the village. The center will be used for meetings, weaving, and workshops that will enable the cooperative to continue trainings with Awamaki as well as support their future as an independent business. The workshop covered how to build self esteem, strengthen confidence, and how to be a leader. It was amazing to see the women collaborating, learning, and getting out of their comfort zones as they worked through each activity as a group. Not only was the workshop helping empower them, but the space “gives them security and more [empowerment]” Mercedes, our head of the women’s cooperatives program, explained. They now have shared ownership of the center and can access it whenever they want, giving them a great place to gather and work as an independent business.

“The idea to build the center had been in the works for the past three years” Mercedes, described. Once the money was raised to build the center, the women got to work right away. Kennedy, our founder and executive director explained that the “artisan group [purchased] the land in the name of the [Wakanquilla] cooperative, and then [Awamaki] collaborated to build the center.” Awamaki helped them with the planning, designing, and fundraising of the center. Once construction finally began, it was completed in a speedy fifteen days, the whole community working together in a community-led initiative typically referred to as a faena, a traditional Quechua concept. Faena’s are usually projects that contribute to the overall growth and development of the community as a whole, bringing people together for a single purpose and goal; the idea being everyone could benefit mutually. “The artisans and their families supplied materials like adobe bricks, thatch for roofs, and stones,” Kennedy continued, “[Awamaki] supplied materials that needed to be purchased, like concrete and wood.  Awamaki was able to purchase the supplies from the generous individual donations given in support of the Wakanquilla cooperative in Kelkanka.”

“Before the center was built, the women would meet in the open air or in the community schools, never having a permanent or reliable place to congregate,” Kennedy explained. These meetings were also dependent on the weather, which can be spotty far up the mountains in Kelkanka where rainy season often blocks transportation on the roads into town completely and snowfall is a common occurrence. The women needed a place to call their own to provide security for their meetings and trainings, as well as a place to store their inventory. In the future the center will help provide a safe, independent central meeting space, or even one day be used as a sales center.

While talking to Eustakia, one of the artisans of the Wakanquilla cooperative, she expressed her excitement for the new center, “It makes me feel very cheerful.” It was anything but difficult to tell that the women were excited to have a new center to use as their own. They all showed up for their first workshop in the center early, waiting outside its locked doors, eagerly awaiting to find a space to sit inside. During the workshop, the women were enthusiastic; activities like group presentations, acting, and ‘simon says’ got them all smiling and laughing. The impact of the center on the women is no doubt positive, and so is the impact on the community. The center is improving the small village, with strengthened economic opportunity for the women who live there.

The future of the center looks bright, and so does the artisans’ business now that they have a center to call their own. It is through the hard work of the women, Awamaki, and our supporters that allow goals like this to be made into reality. We cannott wait to see the progress the cooperative is able to make as a result of the center and the impact it will have on the artisans and their families.

Links:

• http://awamaki.org