Maya Traditions partners with local university student to realize professional internships in their area of study. Here, one of our recent interns, Ana Buch Chavez, shares her experience woking with Maya Traditions, in the area of Community Health: Programs Coordinator Marisol with artisan Vicenta and her grandfather, and local intern Ana on the right My name is Ana Buch Chavez, and I am a student of Social Work. I thank Maya Traditions Foundation for giving me the space to realize my professional internship. As a student of Social Work, one of my responsibilities was the preparation of community
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Hello! My name is Laura Gehring, and I am proud to be the newest addition to the Maya Traditions’ team. I will be working as the Coordinator of Community Tourism, which means I will have the huge honor of bringing visitors out into the field to see our programs and artisans in action. Visitors have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the culture of the region through visiting Maya Traditions’ Organic Medicinal Herb Garden in Panajachel and the surrounding communities where our collaborating cooperatives are located. At the Garden, visitors are free to look, touch, and taste the plants as
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Posted by Erin Kökdil on April 13, 2015
Time flies, yet I feel like time flies even faster in Guatemala. This March marked my second year working with Maya Traditions Foundation. It has been a long, often arduous journey, but one that has lifted my spirits and filled me with indescribable happiness. When I first began with Maya Traditions in March of 2013, I knew I had become part of a very special organization, one that is dedicated to fulfilling its mission through highlighting the gift & skill of others. This became clear early on, during a site visit to the rural community of Quiejel. We traveled two hours
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As a part of our strategic plan, we are working to enhance our Artisan Development Program. Program Coordinator, Isabel Chalcú, is spearheading this project and excited to share some of what she has been working on. The current focus of the Artisan Development Program is to learn more about our artisan and better understand their needs. Working with the majority of our artisans for over twenty years has shown us how their needs are constantly changing. In order to strengthen our relationship with them and understand how they view their current quality of life, Isabel, with support from local university intern
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On Wednesday, January 21st, 2015, Maya Traditions organized our annual artisan meeting with representatives from each cooperative. Artisan Development Coordinator Isabel Chalcú shares her thoughts on the meeting: Each one of our cooperatives is an important part of Maya Traditions Foundation. For she, the artisan, represents the essence of our work. Each year, we work harder, facilitating market access and increasing our educational programming, with the mission to empower our artisans and improve the quality of their lives. To start off 2015, we held a meeting with two representatives from each cooperative. Our objective was to understand and analyze our
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Design Intern Averie Floyd here! I recently took a natural dyeing class with Cecilia in San Juan, where they are known for their beautiful naturally dyed colors. It was interesting to experience the whole process first hand. Here are the steps involved in creating naturally dyed products: The first step is to buy or find our natural dyestuffs, or ingredients that can be used to create dye colors. We decided to work with Palo Campeche, or logwood. Cecilia and the rest of the group use a variety of other products including coffee and guava leaves, marigold and even and even
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