Empowering Women:
Artisan Cooperatives that Transform Communities

AFRICA


KENYA Umoja Uaso Women Group
A Safe Haven from Violence
The beginning of the Umoja Uaso Women’s Group in Kenya was not about art. It was about survival. Rebecca Lolosoli and 16 other homeless women founded the village of Umoja Uaso in 1990 as a refuge for Samburu women who were victims of rape, beatings, forced marriage, and other violent domestic crimes. Umoja, which means “unity,” is now a safe haven for women and girls fleeing abuse. It is also a training center for those seeking to promote human rights, economic empowerment, and the preservation of indigenous art and crafts. The women of Umoja sell their tribe’s elaborately beaded jewelry and crafts to provide for themselves and their children. With the profits from their arts, they have developed
a system of resource sharing which includes a sickness and disability fund, a community center, and a school for local children. Today, Rebecca and other Umoja leaders inspire women throughout the nation through their workshops on such issues as the rights of the girl-child, female reproductive health and hiv/aids, violence prevention, and women’s rights.
Photo: Umoja women singing in their village, 2008, photograph by Stephanie Mendez.


MOROCCO-Women's Button Cooperative of Sefrou
A Stepping Stone to Public Life
An early and pioneering run for public office in 1997 was unsuccessful for Amina Yabis, a typical Moroccan Muslim housewife and mother of four boys. But it left her with a clear realization: women needed first to have access to the cash economy in order to be successful in public life.
Amina vowed to help other women enter and impact the economic and political life of their community. Over the next few years, working in her hometown of Sefrou, Amina organized more than 400 women into a craft association called Golden Buttons. Golden Buttons marketed the hand-knotted buttons women had been making in their homes for generations.
Economic success led to the formation in 2000 of the Women’s Button Cooperative of Sefrou, a for-profit cooperative that was the first of its kind organized by women. In addition to the button-making venture, the cooperative now includes a training program for large floor loom weaving, a springboard for a literacy campaign for women, a women’s leadership program, a natural dying workshop, and other opportunities for successful engagement in public life. Photo: Amina Yabis weaving at the loom with cooperative member Khadija La Adraoui, 2010. Photograph by Oriol Llados

RWANDA- Gahaya Links Cooperative
Weaving For Peace
In 100 days of explosive ethnic violence in 1994, Rwandan Hutus murdered some one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus, leaving hundreds of thousands of widows and orphans. Neighbors killed neighbors; war rape was a systematic means of genocide. How could a nation possibly recover? Ephigenia Mukantabana lost 65 members of her family, but has forgiven her family’s killer, who is now imprisoned. Healing began when Ephigenia worked side by side with the man’s wife, Epiphania, as fellow members of a basket-weaving cooperative in their home village of South Province. From a humble beginning of about 20 women, the company has now grown to a network of over 4,000 weavers across the country, organized into 52 savings cooperatives. Ephigenia credits her work teaching her art to both Hutus and Tutsis as the balm that restored her shattered life. “Art heals the hopeless soul,” Ephigenia said. “And through interaction you reduce trauma. Weaving is hope for tomorrow.” Photo: Gahaya Links cooperative member Aristude Mukashyaka, displaying her
baskets, 2009. Photograph courtesy of Fair Winds Trading.


SOUTH AFRICA
Mapula Embroidery Project
Let’s Talk About This!
“I want people to understand about aids. You can’t get aids if you touch, hug, kiss, hold hands with someone who is infected.” These are the words of Nkosi Johnson, an 11-year old South African boy who lived with — and died from —hiv/aids. Maria Rengane, the founder of the Mapula (Mother of Rain) Embroidery Project in South Africa, embroiders Nkosi’s words on all of her aids quilts to remind her community and the world that “you must not be ashamed of speak out telling the community! When you keep quiet you sign your own death warrant.” With embroidery, Maria and the other members of the collective call attention to the joys and hardships of their homeland. The women embroider daily life scenes as well as current issues impacting their community such as the World Cup, local crime, aids, and unemployment. “Even if I had a million rand, I would not stop doing this work,” says Maria. “I would like to spend all of the years of my life helping communities to do things like this project for themselves. This is how you build a strong successful nation.” Photo: Meriam Baloyi with her Crime embroidery, inspired by the burglary of the artist’s home, 2010. Photograph by Freedom Dube.

 

SWAZILAND- Phez'kwemkhono Bomake-Nceka Cooperative
Feeling Each Other’s Pains
“There’s a saying in our country that men don’t make homesteads, women do,says Nurse Thembeni Mdluli, a basket weaver from Swaziland who formed a women’s cooperative in her village. Today more than 50 local women work together to earn money for their families and to provide support for the community’s many aids orphans. The name of their cooperative, “Phez’kwemkhono,” is a Swazi call from woman to woman to say, “We are the rock that doesn’t collect dust, that shouldn’t collect dust; keep moving.” Cooperative profits have transformed the lives of hundreds of aids orphans in the village by funding education, clothing, a soup kitchen, medicine, and home and hospital services. Nurse marvels at the changes that have been made possible by the work of the cooperative. “Basket weaving has given us a voice in our community. We are now able to fight the impact of the hiv pandemic, one orphan at a time!” In 2009, Nurse Thembeni Mdluli made her first visit to the United States as a featured artist and cooperative representative at the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. Upon her return to the village with toothbrushes to give to all of the aids-orphaned children, one child exclaimed, “Is it Christmas today?” Photo: courtesy of the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market.


Introduction | Asia | Americas | Acknowledgments



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