Mayan Hands is a fair trade organization that has been working with Mayan weavers since 1989. We now work with approximately 200 weavers, organized in groups of 12 to 50 women, living in eleven different communities around the western and northern highlands of Guatemala.
For more than three thousand years, weaving on the backstrap loom, Mayan women have woven their own and their family's clothing as well as produced items for sale. The ancient backstrap loom is very simple, made up of several sticks and a leather or sisal strap that wraps around the woman's body. It requires painstaking dedication and skill, and even expert weavers can only weave about one inch of cloth per hour.
Through all these centuries, Mayan women have made an important cash contribution to their households by selling handwoven goods. At present, however, there are nearly one million weavers in Guatemala, and not close to enough outlets or customers for their products. Too often, desperate for cash, they sell their products for less than it costs them to make them.
All over the world, people hail Maya weavers as talented textile artists, but most of them live in conditions of extreme poverty, often making no more than $3 or $4 monthly, barely surviving. Mayan Hands' mission is to assist these women in their quest to raise themselves out of poverty. Working with fair trade, the women can count on a modest, and just as important, a regular income that enables their families to eat better, send their children to school, improve their homes and even save a little. Selling their handwoven textiles at a fair price, the women are gaining control over their lives.