The indigenous women who wove their success in Nicaragua
Mar 6, 2024 1:05:19 GMT -6
Post by account_disabled on Mar 6, 2024 1:05:19 GMT -6
In the mountains of the city of Matagalpa, in the north of Nicaragua, there is a rural community called El Chile, where a group of 18 local women are the best paid in the area, owners of their time and do not have to leave their home , stop raising their children and much less emigrate to provide them with food. Using organic fabrics and promoting a catalog of 33 original designs including cosmetic bags, bags, purses, backpacks, camera holders, tablet holders, etc., the women of the Nicaragua Indigenous association have managed to exceed the minimum wage assigned for the agricultural sector of the country which is 100 per day , according to the Nicaraguan Ministry of Labor, and they reach per day dollars per day) without leaving their homes. “We have the economic capacity to sustain salaries and increase them if we wish, but we do not do so because we have preferred to create a fund with five fundamental axes: scholarships, health, education, entertainment and loans to improve their homes or purchase land. And for three years we have used a part of the profits for recreation, we take an annual trip with the family,” says Corrales, in charge of marketing and advertising for that association of entrepreneurial women, who came to the group 10 years ago in search of tourist destinations for a tour operator.
According to the most difficult thing is to compete with Chinese products made of synthetic materials. “The original ancestral America Mobile Number List technique and also the materials have been maintained, but the pedal loom has been incorporated to speed up the process, which has helped to be self-sustainable.” Another of the group's challenges is sales, since their products do not have national demand, so they have created a strategy that consists of taking their products to 16 tourist spots in the country, which means that 50% of the cost of the product goes to marketing. “Our buyer is not national, but foreign,” says Corrales. According to the person in charge of marketing, this association suffered a strong blow when Daniel Ortega came to power again as president of Nicaragua (January 2007), because many NGOs left the country due to his politics. “NGOs were a strong market for us, 80% of our production was for them.
The orders were frequent and in large quantities. When he left we had to rethink our market niches.” But the use of social networks and having a website has opened a market for them in the United States, Germany, Holland and England. “We were recently contacted online by a craft store in Miami and sent orders via certified shipping.” Francisca Zamora is 42 years old and has been knitting since she was 10 years old, guided by the elderly women. She is one of the founders of the group. For her, working in her looms makes her feel worthy and autonomous because as a woman from her community they would have to emigrate like those who want to have a job do. Zamora says that at the beginning these women did not make articles, but only produced fabrics, but the same need has led them to look for new alternatives and give added value to organic fabrics. The marketing manager explains that the association of Nicaragua throughout its history has gone through crises but has never thought about disappearing. On the contrary, what she has done is reframe the situation. The price of a woven purse in El Chile is 3 dollars, a backpack has a price of 25 dollars.
According to the most difficult thing is to compete with Chinese products made of synthetic materials. “The original ancestral America Mobile Number List technique and also the materials have been maintained, but the pedal loom has been incorporated to speed up the process, which has helped to be self-sustainable.” Another of the group's challenges is sales, since their products do not have national demand, so they have created a strategy that consists of taking their products to 16 tourist spots in the country, which means that 50% of the cost of the product goes to marketing. “Our buyer is not national, but foreign,” says Corrales. According to the person in charge of marketing, this association suffered a strong blow when Daniel Ortega came to power again as president of Nicaragua (January 2007), because many NGOs left the country due to his politics. “NGOs were a strong market for us, 80% of our production was for them.
The orders were frequent and in large quantities. When he left we had to rethink our market niches.” But the use of social networks and having a website has opened a market for them in the United States, Germany, Holland and England. “We were recently contacted online by a craft store in Miami and sent orders via certified shipping.” Francisca Zamora is 42 years old and has been knitting since she was 10 years old, guided by the elderly women. She is one of the founders of the group. For her, working in her looms makes her feel worthy and autonomous because as a woman from her community they would have to emigrate like those who want to have a job do. Zamora says that at the beginning these women did not make articles, but only produced fabrics, but the same need has led them to look for new alternatives and give added value to organic fabrics. The marketing manager explains that the association of Nicaragua throughout its history has gone through crises but has never thought about disappearing. On the contrary, what she has done is reframe the situation. The price of a woven purse in El Chile is 3 dollars, a backpack has a price of 25 dollars.