Provide Business Opportunities for Peruvian Women
Help Awamaki provide workshops to women weavers. These women come from Quechua-speaking indigenous communities in the remote Andean highlands. Most cannot speak Spanish, read or write. Your support helps Awamaki offer skills-building workshops that helps improve the quality of their weavings so they fetch a higher price. Your support also helps Awamaki offer training in financial management and leadership so that the women can manage their own cooperative membership, orders and communal savings fund.
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The Need
Quechua communities have long lived in isolation from the modern world. Many of these communities don’t have, or have only recently acquired, electricity, schools, road access and other trappings of modern life. In recent years, these communities have leapt into the modern world and the modern economy. Long accustomed to a barter economy, families now need cash to buy school supplies, foods, and medicines. Men participate in the economy working as porters on the Inca Trail and other tourist treks. Women, however, are left in the community to tend children, animals and crops; most grown women can’t read, write or speak Spanish. At the same time, ancient Quechua traditions, like weaving, are being left behind because communities don’t see their value and relevance to the new economy. The Awamaki Women’s Cooperatives Project works with women to allow them to earn a significant cash income while retaining their traditional way of life and revitalizing this important part of Quechua heritage.
About Awamaki
Partner since November, 2011
Awamaki is a non-profit based in Peru that works to promote community development in rural Peru. Rural communities in Peru have largely been left behind by Peru's economic growth over the past few years, and access to economic opportunities and quality education and health care are limited in rural places. Awamaki uses social enterprise strategies to create economic opportunities for women and families in rural towns and indigenous Quechua villages. Awamaki also taps international relationships and volunteers to improve access to quality health care in rural villages and provide educational opportunities for children, women and small business owners.
Awamaki's goal is to promote a higher quality of life for the people of the Ollantaytambo area through health, education and economic opportunities. Awamaki aims to achieve this goal with full community participation, collaboration and partnership in the organization's work. Their programs include the women’s cooperatives program, the health program, the education program and the sustainable tourism program.
