MayaWorks believes community development happens through the economic development of women. When women prosper, their whole community flourishes!

Join us on February 27 for Tapestry of Music, a virtual benefit concert, to support educational opportunities for indigenous women and girls of Guatemala. All ticket sales, donations, and sponsorships will fund scholarships and tutoring activities for girls and skill building training for women artisans. These opportunities go a long way to create prosperity for women and their villages.

The concert will include performances by musicians from Argentina, Brazil, China, Eastern Europe, Guatemala, India, Trinidad, and more and will also include testimonials from scholarship recipients; MayaWorks volunteers; and our founder, Patricia Krause.

We need your support! For just $20, you'll enjoy an hour of beautiful musical performances while supporting MayaWorks educational programs. Please consider sponsoring the event at the $100, $250, $500 or $1000 level. Purchase your ticket today!

Producer: Diane Stein
Director: Lisa Stein
Editor and Graphic Designer: Eren Slifker
Concert Committee: so many wonderful volunteers!

Performers: Rebeca Orantes, Suhail Yusuf Khan, Pranav Ghatraju, Tong Kong, Baymele (Matthew Stein, Misha Khalikulov, and Dmitri Gaskin), Di Shekhter-Tekhter (Temma, Reyna, and Binyumen Schaechter), Briele Scott, Nicole Borger, and Alejandra Czarny

MayaWorks partners with over 125 indigenous artisans in Guatemala who create our striking Fair Trade products.

At its core, MayaWorks is about creating work for women so that they can financially support their families and become fully contributing members of their communities. MayaWorks helps women transform their skills into a means of financial support for their families by creating a market for the traditional arts of Maya artisans. Textile products are distributed within retail and wholesale markets. Giving Guatemalan women an opportunity to earn an income from their skills gives them self-confidence and hope for themselves, their families, and their communities.

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MayaWorks believes that community development happens through economic development of women. MayaWorks is a nonprofit social venture that empowers indigenous women of Guatemala to achieve economic security by providing markets for their handcrafted products, access to microcredit loans, and expanded educational opportunities.

EDUCATION

MayaWorks coordinates several educational programs designed to expand opportunities for women and young girls:

• After-school academic enrichment programming
• Scholarships for daughters of artisans
• Literacy classes

Forty percent of MayaWorks artisans were illiterate and did not complete their primary education. MayaWorks artisans speak a variety of indigenous languages as their primary language. Spanish is their secondary language. MayaWorks partnered with CONALFA to provide literacy training. Artisans now read at the sixth grade level in Spanish.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SOCIAL VENTURE

The MayaWorks social venture opens markets for the sale of traditional Guatemalan handicrafts under the Fair Trade model. By selling their woven products, indigenous women have a source of income generated directly by their skills. This income allows women to provide better food for their families, send their children to school, and take them to the doctor when they are sick. When women take part in improving the economic and social conditions of their communities, their self-esteem is increased, and they are transformed.

MayaWorks is committed to providing ongoing training to its artisans so that they acquire the skills necessary to make new products. Groups receive at least three capacity building trainings per year.

Products are distributed through two primary channels: retail online and wholesale.

MICROCREDIT

The microcredit program helps women develop as entrepreneurs by managing income generating projects.

Artisans complete a loan application that includes a simple business plan. During the course of their project, artisans receive quarterly site visits by the Program Coordinator to evaluate how the project is progressing. If an artisan is experiencing difficulty with the project, she will receive technical support from staff members and will be visited more often. Artisans also attend periodic business trainings.

Artisans have used loans to plant crops, purchase nutritional supplements to sell in their community, and build a small lumber mill among many others!

*At this time, due to the pandemic, MayaWorks is not currently funding microcredit projects, but we hope to resume our program in the future.