A Story of Hard Work and Resilience

We want to introduce everyone to Santa Guachiac, the leader of the Pacutamá weaving cooperative and Board Member of our organization, Yabal Guatemala. Hear from her in her own words: “Since I was a child, my mother, and my great grandmother, they know how to weave on the backstrap loom,  That is their job, and

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Celebrating World Fair Trade Day!

This past May 14 we commemorated World Fair Trade Day. This was a good moment to reflect on how Yabal is part of this World movement, promoting justice in trading partnerships between producers and consumers with a focus on environmental sustainability.  We had the chance to celebrate with women from Chuicutáma, part of the Yabal

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Women’s Garden Project in Full Bloom

Yabal is more than a textile business, we are a social enterprise! This means that the WHY of what we do is based on helping our partner communities thrive! This includes providing fair trade jobs to women weavers, educational scholarships to their children, maternity leave for weavers, and most recently, food security projects like this year’s Women’s Garden Program! The idea for the Garden

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New Eyes, New Points

At the beginning of a recent needle-point workshop in the Pacutama community last month, we asked the women why the older members weren’t there.«They have bad eyesight so they figured they wouldn’t come to a workshop on needle point embroidery» to which we replied, «No, tell them to come! We have reading glasses for them!»

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mmm mmm good!

As part of this year’s oyster mushroom cultivation program with Yabal’s women weavers in Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan, Yabal offered a cooking workshop to give the women new ideas of how to incorporate this nutritious and delicious food into their daily diet. Oyster mushrooms are high in protein, iron, zinc, potassium, folic acid, B vitamins, vitamin

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Mushrooms and Weaving?

What do mushrooms and weaving have in common? They’re both great income-generating projects for women in Guatemala! And projects that Yabal supports in our Guatemalan artisan communities. While we’ve had our Yabal weaving brand for over 10 years now, oyster mushroom cultivation is a newer project. The mission of Yabal is to support the economic

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Who is Yabal Guatemala?

While many know Yabal as an ethical fashion brand, what they do not know is that we partner with the Guatemalan non-profit, Yabal Guatemala to realize social programs in rural artisan communities. 80% of the Board of Directors is made up of women leaders from our artisan communities. Yabal Guatemala promotes the empowerment of indigenous

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A day off

As women we never have a break, we are always working. Whereas the men go to work and then come home to relax, women are working from sunrise to sunset. Washing, cooking, collecting firewood, taking care of the children, taking care of the garden, the chickens, preparing the food for tomorrow. And in between those

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Quality over Quantity

«Quality over quantity» is our unspoken slogan at Yabal. We have been working with a group of around 50 artisans for around 8 years now. Each year we have been able to include a few new women into our Fair Trade weaving project but only when we are able to commit to provide enough work

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