Zapotec Post-Earthquake Reconstruction | Oaxaca MX

The territory in which we live changes every day, because foreign projects have arrived and they are disarticulating our communities. Projects that pretend to bring work, but have brought more inequality and violence. That’s why at UMPO we continue to look for ways to create communities that demonstrate that our livelihoods are valuable and that they can provide us with a dignified life. 

Thus we had a beautiful experience led by our colleague Rosario, who is good at bringing together the collectives of traditional trades. This time we had the pleasure of sharing workshops with 35 food producers. The objective was to be able to strengthen ourselves, as food producers, to make our products more valuable. One of the main problems we experience when producing and selling food is first, that when everything is homemade and handmade it is difficult to standardize what we do. Second, it is hard for us to price our products, and third, to maneuver in our kitchens so that we can produce and have quality products. But what we realized during this program is that we all do the best we can, and that it is only a matter of meeting other people to talk about our lives as food producers to realize that our self-criticism is very high.

When we made the call to this program, we noticed that the general feeling of the collectives and entrepreneurs who came was that although each producer prepares different foods, listening to the stories of other artisans gave them a lot of encouragement to continue along the path of self-employment, which is not easy. Many of the women who participated were the economic pillar of their families and had also chosen these jobs to be able to perform care activities at home.

 We learned about food labeling regulations from consultant Itzel. And it was very nice, because we demythologized the myth that just because we are artisans, we cannot comply with these standards. There were debates, yes, because we questioned a lot if we want to sell our products in the kind of store that asks for labeling or if we just want to sell them locally. However, the juicy thing was just that, to see that we all have different perspectives, and that at least in terms of characterizing our products we all felt excited. 

Then we were joined by Uriel and Abigail, who have a brand of cosmetic and natural products, whom we invited to inspire us, as they have been entrepreneurs for almost a decade and now have a very successful project in the capital of Oaxaca. 

With them, a lot of "dirty laundry" came out, as we say in Mexico, because we went deep to see how much we know about our products and the scariest part, to know if we are making a good profit or losing badly in the sale of our products. 

Sometimes telling what we do in UMPO is complicated, but this experience tells us a lot, and reinforced in our hearts that big changes come in the livelihoods of our daily lives, as the cooks and food artisans live. Thank you for promoting the life of the Istmo de Tehuantepec, which we walk day by day, and which allows us to live a dignified life.