We consider that we are an organization, because we work with ladies, with a few economic resources, we have been working directly with them, because we think in that way, we are helping them in some way, giving work in fabrics of handicrafts, doing handcrafts work in fabrics, they have a small income for their homes, which helps them a lot, to have a little more resources for their family, we give handicrafts work, and we are very thank fully to our customer in the United States, because this work is for house and it is done by hand, and so they can take care of their children at home at the same time, without leaving their homes out, and they also do crafts work in small groups of ladies in their houses, as well as individually, the ladies with whom we work handcrafts, live in different places, remote and suburban areas, of the city, to make the work of handicrafts, we provide them with raw material, to all the ladies, because they can´t have the possibility to buy the raw material, due to the cost of alpaca wool, we give them work according to the order of our customers and the requirement of the same.
Our main mission is to make our work good quality, and to be able to let know to our customers our culture, through the, design of our products, for this purpose or commitment, we use the precolumbian iconographies of the aymara´s culture, as well as some iconographies of the aztecas culture, and also we use iconographies of the people of American Navajo, by employing the aymara´s ladies for handicrafts.
How long has our company or organization been in business?
The business of handicrafts woven in alpaca wool, has been initiated by my mother and now we are continuing the business, my mother has worked with a group of ladies since 1972, with sales in handicrafts shops in our city of La Paz – Bolivia, and since 1981 my mother formed an association of ladies in handicrafts, this association did not work or continue, because there were not much demand in handcrafted textiles in our city of La Paz, but at the request of many ladies, in 1989, we went to New York City, looking for work in handicrafts, more specifically looking for buyers of handcrafts in alpaca wool, and that is, when we got to meet with Ecuadorian artisan, who lived in the city of Queens, in New York , with whom, we were left to work in cloth weaving in lamb wool, and we began sending them to Ecuadorian customers for about nine years, his name was Alonzo Santellan and Mr. José Cando, both were our Ecuadorian customers for then, and we sent from Bolivia heavy wool-colored sweaters for the American Winter, we worked with them for many years, approximately until 1997, and so on, during that years, we got to know many others customers, such as Mrs. Kathy O´Brien of Campus Peddler, Mr. Bareto Brawn, Mr. George Russell of Cool Jewels, Wigman from London, Mr. David Blanchette of Frantic, Boca Grande, Tienda HO of Mr. William Dougerth in Santa Barabara California and other customers. That we had to work in. We do not select the weavers, but we teach to all the ladies, who wish to do the handicrafts, once they were trained, they themselves teach to the other Aymara ladies.
The technique we use are the use of knitting sticks or crochet hooks, for knitting, we use also the knitting machines for hand, we do embroidery, we do also crochet work. We are very proud, first, that our products were very appreciated in many shops in the United States, country, where there is a good control in quality of the products, and we are very, very proud of our people who worked and works with us for many years, the ladies who weave good products, the people who work in quality control, the people who work in packing and taking the packing list of merchandise, all of them were ladies, that is the way, we enter to United States.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely
