Creating employment through textile crafts for indigenous women of Lake Titicaca, Bolivia.

  • Country: Bolivia.
  • Location: Lake Titicaca, Copacabana Municipality, and peripheral areas of El Alto.
  • Duration: December 2018 to May 2019.
  • Participants: 100 indigenous artisan women, ages 18 to 57..
  • Area of specialization: Rural Market Development, Vocational Training, and Microentrepreneurship.

Starting point

The Lake Titicaca area has always been linked to pre-Columbian culture, as the islands of the sun and the moon were Inca pilgrimage centers. Today, it is an important tourist area, attracted by its nature, archaeology, history, and culture.

The Quechua and Aymara women who live in this area possess valuable ancestral knowledge of textile crafts. However, high unemployment and discrimination, along with the low social and economic participation they experience within their families and communities, do not favor the preservation of this knowledge.

Furthermore, these women are not organized to produce handicrafts professionally and with the quality standards demanded by the market.

Objective

To improve the living conditions of indigenous women and their families living in poverty on Lake Titicaca, Bolivia. Specifically, to strengthen the market for local textile crafts as a source of decent employment.

What is the project about

The project’s goal is to contribute to the employment integration of handicrafts into the textile market. To this end, the following activities will be carried out:

  • Technical assistance program for organizational and leadership strengthening of beneficiaries. The leaders will be trained to hold public or community positions that certify their social participation and leadership skills for the fulfillment of women’s basic rights. Their organization around textile production and their self-management capacities for artisanal activities complementary to their family or community economic activities will also be strengthened.
  • Technical training program to improve the products produced by the beneficiaries. It will include technical assistance in design and quality control from an exporting firm.
  • Technical assistance program to promote public-private partnerships for the marketing of textile products with their own identity made by beneficiaries.

The aim is to empower women in these communities to integrate their textile products, under their own brand, into the local market of domestic and international tourists in Copacabana and La Paz.

Entities that support this project