Women in a village in Guatemala have joined forces to make textiles using environmentally friendly methods and without a boss. Photos and story by Green Diosa.
Marianne from Green Diosa was in Guatemala a few months ago and discovered how women running small businesses like Asociación Kemo are continuing ancient traditions, while creating beautiful clothes, scarves, rugs, hats and bags from nature.
San Juan is a village on Lake Atitlán with a native population of around 11,000 Tzu’tuji people who are one of 22 Mayans tribes in Guatemala. Traditionally the village has depended on fishing and agriculture but with declining fish stocks, the local population – in particular groups of local women – have been selling textiles to tourists to make a living. One such group is Asociación Kemo.
Candelaria Yotz from Kemo explained: “We are an association of 22 women and work together to sell our products so we can help our own children carry on studying. It’s a family business, our husbands go to the hills to look for plants, tree bark and collect cotton that they have planted. They clean it, the women then dye the cotton and our children roll it up in balls.”
“There is no (male) boss telling us what to do” (Candelaria, Asociación Kemo)
Guatemalan society like in many other countries in Latin America can be characterized as being patriarchal and ‘machista‘ that often excludes women. In most rural communities in Guatemala, the traditional role of a woman is to stay at home, cooking, cleaning and looking after the kids. Candelaria hopes that is changing: “We work creating our products and there is no (male) boss telling us what to do.” She says: “As women, our association is all about creativity and design, and every tourist who comes here and buys something is helping us as women, helping our children and also helping our families.”
Ascelin Mendoza also works at Kemo. She taught Marianne how to make threads from cotton and how different plants and tree barks are used together to create different tones and colours. “The variations that insects and plants have is that they give us different tones or colours when they are mixed together,” says Ascelin. For example, the Cochinillo in its natural colour it gives us a darker tone like meat but if you mix it with lemon juice it gives us a more intense red colour.”
Ascelin adds: “The colours are all from nature and they don’t pollute the lakes or kill animals but have vitamins that return again to the earth. Also because the earth gives us things, we have to return things to the earth – unlike chemicals.”
After oil and gas, the fashion industry is the most damaging to the planet causing huge quantities of greenhouse gases, drying up water sources, contaminating rivers and using massive quantities of energy, water and chemicals.
“The best path to follow is the one that doesn’t damage nature’s resources“ (Ascelin, Asociación Kemo)
Ancient methods of textile production in Guatemala avoid using man-made chemicals. And Ascelin was keen to stress to Marianne that what she does doesn’t have a negative environmental impact. “Chemicals bring a lot of things that cause nature to have a short time span,” she says. “For example they kill animals and that’s not something that we want to happen here. Since a long time ago, our ancestors taught us these techniques that we continue to use in the same way. We realise that the best path to follow is the one that doesn’t damage nature’s resources, and we love doing it this way.”
Asociación Kemo generates a triple impact because it doesn’t look just to make money but generates a positive environmental impact working with products derived from nature without chemicals. It also has a positive social impact as encourages women to become entrepreneurs and work independently.
All photos © Green Diosa
