Weaving for Justice fundraiser for Maya youth changes format

Thanks to the generosity of 40 donors, more than 700 uniquely beautiful textiles, jewelry items, books, pottery pieces and tourist items from Mesoamerica and other parts of Latin America will be on sale by appointment through the end of 2020 at the Weaving for Justice store, 525 E. Lohman Ave.

This year’s regularly scheduled fundraiser, scheduled for Oct. 31-Nov. 1, was cancelled due to recent COVID-19 restrictions, said Weaving for Justice co-founder Christine Eber.

Proceeds from sales will fund scholarships for Maya youth and children in Belize, Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico, with a special focus on girls and young women, Eber said. The scholarships “help them keep studying despite the many obstacles they face during the pandemic,” she said.

Eber, a retired NMSU professor of anthropology, said she has been working with women weavers in Chiapas since the late 1980s.

The sale is being coordinated by Weaving for Justice’s seven-member steering committee and other volunteers. Weaving for Justice is a volunteer organization that partners with the Maya Educational Foundation (MEF) on the textile sales. MEF, based in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, has worked since 1992 to assist Maya children and youth to pursue a path out of poverty through education, Eber said.

“COVID-19 has hit Maya students very hard,” she said. As of July, the number of households in Guatemala that needed food and nutritional assistance had increased by nearly 103 percent, Eber said, and cases of acute malnutrition for children under five had increased by 112 percent.

MEF’s scholarships help provide computers and online access to students who might have borrowed computers before COVID-19 or gone to Internet cafes that are now closed.

The textiles for sale will include items from the Andes and other parts of Latin America, including huipiles (women’s blouses), yardage of cloth, table runners and more, Eber said.

“I have been traveling to Guatemala for the past 45 years and, quite frankly, have collected too many things,” said Carol Hendrickson of Marlboro, Vermont, an anthropologist and donor to the textile fundraiser every year. “It’s time to share some of these wonderful textiles and other items, and the Weaving for Justice fundraiser each year allows me to do that and support programs that give scholarships to Maya students.”

“Volunteering in Guatemala as an English tutor for scholarship students, I had the great pleasure to see three young Maya women go on to become leaders in their community in positions of nurse, trilingual administrative assistant and trilingual human rights lawyer,” said Weaving for Justice steering committee member Aurelia Holliman. “Without the scholarships, combined with their hard work, this would not have been possible.”

“Our scholarship students are changing their lives and their communities,” said MEF Executive Director Elisabeth Nicholson. “They work as nurses, doctors, dentists, teachers, engineers and lawyers and are making their world a better place already.”

To make an appointment to view items for sale and make purchases, call 575-621-5999.

For more information about Weaving for Justice and the Maya Educational Foundation, visit www.weaving-for-justiceorg and https://mayaedufound.org/.