Nordstrom's headquarters and flagship store in downtown Seattle.

The shoe store Wallin & Nordstrom was founded by John W. Nordstrom in Seattle, Washington in 1901. Through its various incarnations over the last one hundred plus years, Nordstrom, Inc., has grown into one of the most well known upscale department store chains in the United States. Because of its history of corporate citizenship and its formidable status, Nordstrom is precisely the sort of company with which thriving fair trade organizations want to partner. A Hall of Fame member of Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list, Nordstrom has been involved in the fair trade movement since at least 2003 when it launched a fair trade and sustainable coffee program. By carrying Mercado Global’s spring jewelry collection, Nordstrom will be sourcing fair trade jewelry for the very first time.

A view of Chuacruz from the dirt road that descends into the village.

Almost 3,000 miles Southeast of Nordstrom’s headquarters in Seattle lays the village of Chuacruz in Guatemala’s highlands. The village is nestled in a valley that rests just south of the Pan-American Highway and is inhabited by about 800 Kaq’chikel Mayas, many of whom speak little or no Spanish. Chuacruz is not a place that can be easily located on a map, nor does Wikipedia have an article about it. It’s a village that most people from the United States will never hear about, much less visit, but it has become an important source of high-quality fair trade products that will increasingly be available on the U.S. market. In short, if you don’t know about Chuacruz, it’s time you learned.

The town has one primary school which is located at the bottom of the valley and surrounded by cornfields and the rolling hills that are characteristic of Guatemala’s highlands. One of Mercado Global’s supporters, Sadie Bronck, donated her Bat Mitzvah money to help the school purchase a new kitchen and computer lab. Most of the town’s residents make their living off the land, growing corn and raising chickens, among other agricultural endeavors. Others who live in and around Chuacruz are artisans who make weavings and jewelry in order to earn extra money for their families.

Fifteen of these artisans make up Mercado Global’s partner cooperative Artesanas Mayas (eleven from Chuacruz and four more from the neighboring village Los Morales). While Artesanas Mayas has partnered with Mercado Global for only a little over a year, most of the women have over a decade of experience developing their exceptional craftsmanship. One such woman is Estela Quiquiná, who is from Los Morales but works with the other women in nearby Chuacruz. When Estela was a girl growing up in Los Morales, she had to walk a half an hour to go to school in Chuacruz because Los Morales lacked a primary school. Nowadays, however, the children of Los Morales go to a new school in their own village. Estela hopes that one day the school in Los Morales will have a kitchen built like the one in Chuacruz.

Estela Quisquiná Morales, a highly experienced artisan from Artesanas Mayas.

Estela has ten years’ experience crafting jewelry, and she truly enjoys what she does. She says that she is happy and relieved that her relationship with Mercado Global has afforded her the opportunity to practice her craft while earning more money. “My favorite thing about working with Mercado Global,” she says, “is the support they have given to me and the other women from my community.”

All told, you would be hard pressed to meet a nicer group of ladies than the ones from Artesanas Mayas. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to go to their workplace with Marisol Morales, MG’s Artisan Training & Asset Development Program Coordinator who is currently helping cooperatives prepare for involvement in our micro-credit program. Everyone from Artesanas Mayas was there, and they welcomed Marisol and I with a delicious and enormous stew. Mercado Global is fortunate that we can call the women of Artesanas Mayas our partners.

The women from Artesanas Mayas outside their work place in Chuacruz.

Is there a particular aspect of Mercado Global’s work about which you would like to know more? If so, feel free to offer me suggestions in the comments section concerning any future posts you would like to see. And thanks for reading.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Not only do these earrings benefit the village of San Pablo, Guatemala, but they have a beautiful Bohemian quality that works all year round! Imagine them peeking out from under your favorite winter hat, bringing a little glam to a cold, dreary day. As for the spring, tell us these don’t have “perfect compliment to vintage caftan” written all over them! If caftans aren’t your thing, how gorgeous would these be with a sleek summer dress?

Couldn’t have said it better myself. To check out Mercado Global’s merchandise, all of which combines exceptional Maya craftsmanship with modern design, check out our e-commerce site.

Arriving in Guatemala, I took a taxi to my homestay and met the wonderful family that I’d be staying with. I dropped my bags off in my room and was taken the short 2 minute walk to see the office (it’s extremely convenient living so close to the office!). There I met Joanna and Harry, who were working late, and was pleased to find friendly co-workers. They made the transition much easier by showing me the ways of the city and introducing me to many people in the community.

To begin my first week of work I was quickly informed of what an exciting and industrious week it would be. Everyone was running full steam to make sure everything was perfect for our Nordstrom order.  Ruth arrived a day after I did to assist in the process and had a whirlwind of a trip. I, too, was caught up in the hustle and bustle of making sure the order was completed to the highest quality. I met everyone, who were very kind to take time to welcome me to the close-knit office and make me feel at home.  As things came together with the shipment, I slowly found my place in the office and learned my responsibilities.  I will be assisting with the Conference Bag Program doing sales and marketing. The first week has been great to observe the office and see how it functions. I’m excited to have the projects I’ll be working on and hope that I’ll be able to make a contribution to this great mission-driven organization. It is so apparent what a difference this organization has on the women in these partner communities. I enjoy watching artisans working diligently on products just outside our office.  Seeing those women working hard, earning income for their family is such an uplifting feeling.  One only has to walk down the main street here to see how many other families aren’t making ends meet by trying to sell their products to a non-existing market.  For those people, I am driven to work harder, to find more markets in the United States and link our products to them. By those means, we can help the women who still struggle to find a better living and break away from an impoverished life.

To sum up my week, I would say it has been fantastic learning about the office during a very demanding and significant time for this organization. I love what Mercado Global is doing for these communities and am proud to be a part of it. Staying with a host family has shown me how wonderful the people are down here and I love eating meals with the family while they tell me everything from Spanish jokes by the 3^rd grade daughter to the current happenings with the teacher’s strike.  I feel more and more comfortable every day in this country, even with the two 5.7 magnitude earthquakes shaking my world.  Judging by my first week, I’m most certain that this is going to be an exciting 3 months.

Delia is the second of eight children, two boys and six girls, who were born from one Señor Lucas Mendoza and another Señora Juana Mendoza (hence the two “Mendozas” in her name) in San Juan la Laguna near the banks of Lake Atitlán. Her father was a farmer, growing coffee, onions, and other vegetables in order to support the family and provide an education for his children.



Delia Rosario Mendoza Mendoza, Mercado Global’s Guatemala Operations Director.

Delia’s family speaks Tz’utuhil, one of over twenty languages indigenous to Guatemala. Her mother still speaks no Spanish, although her father has learned some over the years. Delia learned Spanish herself at the age of six, when she began attending primary school. Was school difficult not knowing Spanish? “Yes, it was difficult,” she says, “But when the teachers are speaking Spanish and all the books are in Spanish, one adapts. It’s easier to learn a new language at a young age.” Delia’s four-year-old son speaks Spanish better than Tz’utuhil, although Delia is insistent that he learn the language of her ancestors. She is teaching him a little at a time.

About fifteen years ago, Delia decided to try to find work, willing as she was to do whatever necessary to earn some income. Like many small-town Guatemalan women, Delia left home to seek employment in Guatemala City.  While living with her aunt, she began working with an organization that gave support to young adolescent girls who left their homes due to financial issues to try and find work as maids in the city. The girls who did obtain house-keeping jobs often found the work very difficult. “Many times they didn’t know how to use the washing machines and other electric appliances,” Delia says. “They’d arrive in the houses and didn’t have experience working the machines, because we don’t need them in our communities.”

Delia provided training, helped the girls with homework, and worked to obtain employment rights, living quarters, and jobs for these migrant girls, who often were as young as twelve. Beyond helping them adjust to a difficult life, she was also their counselor, listening to their problems and advising them on the numerous issues facing girls on the brink of womanhood: growing up, family planning, and, of course, boyfriends.

Delia, center, discussing scholarship program with artisans in Zaput.

Since then Delia has in one way or another been working to improve the quality of life for other Guatemalans, be it in micro-credit or fair trade. If she could change anything about Guatemala, it would be the educational system. She would like to see her children grow up in a country that provided more and higher quality educational opportunities for everyone. “The gravest problem is that, while there is access to education, it is very limited,” Delia says. “For most children, it’s only possible to go for six years. But there are so many economic complications that it becomes difficult to continue going to school.”

All the more reason for her to work as passionately as she does for Mercado Global, helping to not only improve her fellow Guatemalans’ lives in the present, but create opportunities for an even brighter future.

Woman street vendor in Panajachel waits for costumers on a Tuesday afternoon in January.

Panajachel, a town of approximately 11,000 inhabitants and home to Mercado Global’s Guatemala offices, is one such community. The main commercial street is lined with dozens of vendors, mostly indigenous women, who from sun-up to sun-down attempt to persuade tourists to buy their crafts and weavings. This is the only market to which these artisans have access, a market saturated with an enormous supply of similar crafts and with a demand that is at best inconsistent and at worst nonexistent. Regardless of the skill of the artisan, it just isn’t easy to make a living in a market like this.

To make matters worse, the majority of women artisans around Atitlán, and all of those with whom Mercado Global partners, do not live in Panajachel. The cooperative Artesanas Mayas, for example, hails from Chuacruz, a small lakeside community. “There is no market [to sell artisan crafts] in Chuacruz,” says Ana, who, along with the rest of her cooperative, is working with Mercado Global to develop designs for Nordstrom. As a result, if they want to sell their crafts, they have to go to Panajachel or Sololá, a larger but less touristy town near the lake. “The trip is expensive,” they all say. By the time they have paid to travel to and from Panajachel, they often haven’t netted much at all. Moreover, the truck only comes to Chuacruz twice a week, making it difficult to earn money on a consistent basis.

A pickup truck arrives in Panajachel with women who have come to sell. Such trucks make trips to and from Sololá all day, but rarely travel to the smaller communities where Mercado Global’s partner artisans live.

Similarly, a cooperative from San Jorge la Laguna, Diez Rosas (Ten Roses, a name they received as a result of their invariably friendly dispositions), which is working with Mercado Global for the first time, says that they are forced to travel to Panajachel to sell goods because San Jorge receives literally zero tourism. Skilled and experienced as they are in weaving and jewelry-making, it is scarcely possible to eke out a living this way.

The model that Mercado Global employs not only helps artisans to use their skills to earn more money; it also saves them the hassle and expense of these otherwise necessary trips in the backs of pickup trucks. Instead of scraping by through irregular sales to passing tourists, these women are now designing and producing jewelry which will be sold in Nordstrom. Talk about a market upgrade.

Furthermore, Nordstrom and other main-stream retailers now have a way to source socially-responsible product and provide their customers with fashion accessories that are not made by people working under sub-standard labor conditions. With this model, everyone wins.

I am a development professional with 35 years in the United Nations Development Programme.  I have been to dozens of projects promoting community development, employment, women’s empowerment, microcredit, etc. and also designed a few of them myself.  Joanna’s working for Mercado Global was not only a great excuse for a vacation in Panajachel.  I was also very keen on seeing what was so special about their business model.

So on Friday Joanna, Marisol – the microcredit officer – and I went across the lake to Santiago Atitlán, to visit the women of Artesanas Atitlán Cooperative.  There were about 8 of them, sitting around two rickety tables in the courtyard of Luisa, their leader.  They were busy making the complicated “volcano” endings for the bead necklaces that Nordstrom had ordered 1,550 of.  They were getting a relatively good wage at 8Q an hour.  The earnings went to the Cooperative where it was shared among the members, with some put aside for savings as well.  As the brochures say, educating the children seemed to be their most important priority.  I was also pleased to hear that their husbands were supportive, and happy about the income they were bringing in and what they wanted to do with it.

Maya woman wearing beautifully embroidered güipil.

It was good to see these benefits, which is how women’s cooperatives give their members the money and the confidence that can raise them out of poverty and beyond.  But more than this, I was struck by the unique feature of this model – the link into the high-end retailers in the US.  A question I usually ask in community development projects is “What if you’re successful?”  Typically an NGO-supported cooperative will produce fine quality artisan work, but then a company says, “Great.  We need 1,000 of these, in a month.”  And you are dealing with societies that have never heard of quality control or any other requirements needed to get beyond a local or a niche market.  But here the women’s skills are already highly polished, with a strong tradition of weaving and appliqué in the multiple colors and complex patterns of their traditional dress.  It seemed that their weaving, color and design abilities transferred well to jewelry-making.  So when Artesanas Atitlán – with just a little training – was given the sample necklace and asked to deliver 300 in two weeks, they gave it a once-over and just said, “no problem.”  Between the three cooperatives working on it the order will get done, the quality will be good, and they will be ready for more.

Also – it’s not “típico”.  The product is dialed way back to meet sophisticated American tastes.  When I asked the ladies if they liked the design, they just shrugged.  There is no way this could be mistaken for any of the necklaces in the stalls lining the tourist streets.  And I imagine that for companies like Nordstrom, the less touristy an item looks the better it meets their exacting standards.

It’s all in the design.  An item has to look stylish enough to sell in Nordstrom, and it also must be able to be produced with the skills the Mayas have been proficient in for hundreds of years.  It is the key to the model, and I can see it working wherever modern designers working with traditional artisans are able to tap into and re-purpose deeply ingrained capacities and templates.

And one more thing – Mercado Global’s products are popular with high-end retailers because of the new levels of global awareness.  For them, “fair trade” is the way they promote being “green”.  My original perception, reinforced from so many NGO promotionals, was that for purchasers to feel they are helping preserve a traditional heritage, they need to get something resembling the actual traditional motifs.  In fact, this approach can actually turn a cultural symbol into a commercial product, weakening its value as an item that lives in the culture.  But with Mercado Global’s approach, the Maya motifs can retain their unique cultural significance.  And the skills used to produce them can be preserved, because they now have value in the – yes – Global Market.  The women of Artesanas Atitlán Cooperative can be proud to be Maya, because Mayas are able to produce wonderful jewelry that fashionable ladies in America want to buy.  I told them, “If you are proud making it, they will be proud wearing it.”

And that, to me, sums up the magic of the model.  Congratulations to Mercado Global!!

Estela Quisquiná Morales is the aunt of Rosa Tun Quisquiná. The two women are artisans from Chuacruz and have been partnering with Mercado Global for the past year. Both women speak Kaqchikel as a first language, and they began learning Spanish at around age twenty.

Chuacruz is an isolated community that receives very little tourism. As a result, prior to partnering with Mercado Global, Estela and Rosa were forced to make the two hour trip twice a day to and from Panajachel, a more popular tourist location, to sell their jewelry. Pay was inconsistent, and much of the little money they managed to earn was spent on daily travel expenses.

Nowadays, because of orders they have received through Mercado Global sales, Estela and Rosa, like the other artisans from their community, can work from home. This means less time and money spent on traveling and more time spent caring for their children and producing beautiful artesanias. Please help support these inspiring women by browsing some of their beautiful designs on our e-commerce site.

In Guatemala, there is widespread and significant inequality in educational opportunities for indigenous children living in rural communities. According to this 2007 report from the Population Council, educational inequality in Guatemala, the country with by far the largest indigenous population in Central America, is the highest in Latin America. Maya adults have less than half the level of schooling of Ladino (non-indigenous mestizo) adults: 2.5 years versus 5.7 years. The Inter-American Development Bank observes that for the past decade the percentage of Guatemala’s indigenous working population with less than a secondary education consistently hovers around 90%, compared with about 75% for Ladinos.

The indigenous population also consistently earns less than its Ladino counterpart. The Inter-American Development Bank reports that between 2000 and 2006, the average monthly income for Ladinos was almost twice that of indígenas. Even in rural areas, where a general lack of economic opportunity tends to even the playing field for everyone, Ladinos earned an average of Q1,328 between 2000 and 2006, compared with just Q883 for indígenas (66% of the Ladino figure).

These figures raise the question: Are educational and financial inequality for indigenous people in Guatemala linked? Are they both caused by some additional variable, like racism? Is the apparent connection just coincidental? Or, do they cause each other in a cyclical chicken-and-egg scenario? Research tends to suggest the latter.

There is no doubt that the less money a family has, the lower level of education will be attained by the children from that family. The Guatemala Living Standards Measurement Survey from 2000 reports that the main reason that children between the ages of 7 and 12 drop out is a lack of money – a factor that does not vary by gender or ethnicity. Likewise, among 13 – 24-year-old respondents, the most frequently cited reasons for nonenrollment were household chores (for females) and work (for males). Among both sexes, a lack of money was the second most common reason. The fact that families with immediate financial emergencies are better served if their children work and that education in Guatemala is not free by any means (uniforms, travel expenses to and from school, etc.) create this causal relationship.

Conversely, the lower level of education attained by a Guatemalan, the less income-earning opportunities he or she will have. Sources suggest that the number one determinant of gender and ethnic wage disparities in Guatemala is level of education. This 2008 study from the Inter-American Development Bank, for example, concludes that “Wage gaps in Guatemala are partially explained by differences in human capital characteristics, especially education, between indigenous and non-indigenous and males and females, which calls for equalization of educational opportunities for the population.” Thus, the income inequality between ethnicities and genders can also be explained because of inequalities in access to education.

And so we are left with a vicious cycle: less education means less income, and less income means less education. Given this predicament, what can we do to break the cycle?

Mercado Global is partnering with resource-poor indigenous Guatemalans to break this cycle of poverty by creating income-generating and educational opportunities in Guatemala’s highland communities. We create opportunities to earn more income and achieve economic self-sufficiency by utilizing a scalable model that develops the capacity of rural women artisans to produce and deliver high quality products for major U.S. companies. Through its strategic partnerships Mercado Global has also been able to leverage the resources of U.S. and Guatemalan professionals to ensure the artisans have continuous product design assistance – an absolute necessity for ensuring ongoing demand for their products in the mainstream U.S. market. Our business platform and sales outlets have helped indigenous Guatemalan women artisans use their talents to earn a three-fold increase in their daily incomes.

And what are they doing with all that money? Primarily, they are using it to send their kids to school. Through a combination of increased income for local mothers and direct Mercado Global scholarships, 100% of elementary school-aged children of our original partner artisans are enrolled in school for a second consecutive year. Eighty percent of middle school-aged children of partner artisans are currently enrolled in school, a figure far above the national average. Mercado Global sales and clients have also funded 508 scholarships for local children. This degree of access to Guatemala’s frequently inaccessible educational system is downright unprecedented in the communities in which we work. And, as we have seen, when kids go to school for longer, they are able to earn more money, breaking the cycle of poverty that has affected their families for generations. These children will soon be the agents of progress and growth in their communities, their country, and the world.

We are happy to be along for the ride.

As Jewelry Production Coordinator, I oversaw the production of the bag from start to finish. Mercado Global worked with three of our partner cooperatives to create these high-quality bags for Cambria Cove: San Jorge la Laguna, Artesanas Mayas, and Artesanas Atitlán. All three cooperatives are located in communities on the banks of Lake Atitlán.

As a former member of one of Mercado Global’s jewelry cooperatives, I could relate to the artisans’ excitement about the work opportunity they got due to this order – Mercado Global paid them three times the average daily wage in their communities. The creation of each one of these bags requires a great deal of patience, skill, and time. Despite the amount of care that is required, however, the women are eager to have many more orders because they are motivated by the increased earnings they are receiving.

Cambria Cove has also picked up our Fiesta Table Linens Collection. Each item in this gorgeous collection has a unique story. The table runner is derived from a unique scarf design created by artisans in the Chuacruz community. The inspiration for the napkins came from the fabric the women use to make scarves. The design for the napkin rings came from the bracelets the jewelry groups sell to tourists who visit Lake Atitlán year round.

You can see all our products that Cambria Cove carries here. We are pleased that Cambria Cove has chosen to support socially-responsible consumerism and help us in our efforts to end poverty in Guatemala.

NOTE: This blog post was written in Spanish and translated by Harry Stevens.

Yesterday, Adriana visited the office to write a letter to our supporters in the U.S. She dictated a letter to me expressing her appreciation for the opportunity Mercado Global sales have given her to earn enough to support her family and send her children to school. So, without further ado, here’s what Adriana says to everyone in the States:

Dear Mercado Global,

I want to tell you that Mercado Global, more than anything else, has been a great help. Before, we artisans had no work. There was no market for our crafts; we could find no one to sell to. Our cooperative, Artesanas Mayas, struggled a lot. Many people had no way to earn enough to provide for their families, and many children could not study in school.

Mercado Global came and gave us a way to sell our crafts. This has been a huge support for us and our families. Now, we have lots of orders. We like making the conference bags because it gives us work and money to support our families. It is important for women to support their children and husbands. Through Mercado Global, everything is getting better. All of the members of our cooperative are happier with each other, and we are very happy to help each other with the work.

We’ve received training from Mercado Global, too. Before, we knew how to use the sewing machines, but Mercado Global trained us to use them well. Because of the training, we are better sewers now and we are able to make more bags. We are very grateful for Mercado Global, and we are always available and interested in whatever project we can help with.

I am hopeful that we will continue to have orders from Mercado Global so that my children can keep studying and I can support my family as I have been. Thank you to everyone in the United States who has helped to give us the opportunity to work and earn an income. I would like to ask you to please continue to support our work however you are able to.

Sincerely,

Adriana Isabel Morales

One final note. Adriana never had the chance to finish first grade, so I had to take dictation from her. Her children, however, have been encouraging her to get back in school. They’ve kept telling her that she’ll be able to finish a primary education if she works hard and believes in herself. Finally, they convinced her. Now that she has extra money through her work with Mercado Global, Adriana is taking classes on the weekend. Next time she wants to send a letter, she won’t have to dictate it. She’ll get to write it herself.