FAIR TRADE/CHALATE ARTS
Women in Arcatao organized the Taller Fransisca Artesania (Fransisca Artisan Workshop) many years ago as they were repopulating Arcatao during the armed conflict. The women had learned embroidery while they were living in Mesa Grande, a refugee camp in Honduras. Señora Tomasa Lopez was the beloved founder of the workshop. The coop members sew a variety of garments and linens and then decorate them with traditional embroidered designs, which they sell to international organizations, including MASCP.
MASCP orders t-shirts, bags, aprons, dresses, napkins, etc, from the cooperative every year and sells the items at two festivals in Madison- the Fair Trade Holiday Festival in the fall and Madison's International Fair in the spring.
MASCP members also work with the women in the Taller Francisca cooperative to create new Fair Trade products and designs that they hope will be of interest to people in Madison.
Fair Trade is an integrated and multi-leveled concept. It means that fairly traded goods:
- are quality products
- were created by farmers/ workers who are getting a fair wage and work in decent conditions
- were produced with environmentally sustainable farming/ manufacturing practices
The women in the Taller Francisca cooperative charge a fair price for their beautiful work, taking into account the cost of their materials and the time they put into each item. They also maintain a small building for their supplies and add on a percentage for the upkeep of that building. They work together every afternoon and share the profits among the group.
The embroidery that the women in the Taller Fransisca do seems to be a hybrid technique between "colcha" and "otomi" embroidery. It is extremely durable embroidery that can be used to repair blankets and quilts ( the meaning of "colcha" in Spanish), but in this case is used primarily for decoration. One surprising quality of this embroidery is that it looks the same on the front and the back--something that is not the case with either colcha or otomi. MASCP is proud to support the women's expertise and entrepreneurial efforts in the Taller Fransisca Artesania.
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