Zapotec Post-Earthquake Reconstruction | Oaxaca MX

Thanks to you, the Healing Center opened its doors to one of the most representative traditional crafts: traditional embroidery. The achievements have been outstanding.

Over time, Oaxaca's communities have tried to preserve traditional crafts, unfortunately, everyday more of them are forgotten and with that oblivion, our roots are buried too. While craftswomen focus their energy on saving the knowledge, the textile market evolves and it has been increasingly difficult to compete with local artisans. We identified this weakness in our community so we decided to create opportunities via training and finding ways to improve their quality.

This time we were lucky to receive a specialist in patterns and clothing design, this could sound crazy but one of the biggest quality weakness of our traditional embroidery pieces is the stitching and the design. So we thought: "get the artisans out of the box! let them make art proposals!". Thanks to you the women of the productive center can make better creations.

Fashion designer and plastic artist, Frida Arellano, came to our village last February to train five preselected women in an intensive workshop. The results were amazing, women learned how to take measures, create patterns and designs for blouses and dresses.

"We have a lot of ideas for our work but when we are looking for a dressmaker who sews well, we always fail... our clients want quality, the details matters. Our embroidery took us hours, but if the piece has a detached thread, it loses value" said Iris, one of the members of the weaving cooperatives that was born from the traditional workshops of Manos Que Reconstruye Oaxaca.

Words are not enough to express how grateful we are. You are not only a guardian of traditional productive crafts but a creator of opportunities. Surprises and great advances are coming, we can't wait to share them with you!