¡Hola! - Victoria Quispe Achata, President of Artesania Pachamama Peru

My name is Victoria Quispe Achata and I am President of Artesania Pachamama Peru. If you have a few moments I would like to tell you about our women’s cooperative. Artesania Pachamama is located in the small town of Mañazo in the Department of Puno in Peru - about 30 miles from the famous Lake Titicaca. Mañazo is tucked in the Southern Andes Mountains at an altitude of almost 14,000 feet – like Pike’s Peak in the USA. Although we are in the tropical zone the altitude and the Humbolt ocean current make it cold most of the year.

Our Homes

Our houses are made of adobe brick with a thatch or tin roof.

Roof Top

We are proud to say that every family has a spicket for water, a bulb or two for light in their homes. However due to the cost of electricity they rarely use the lights. The town now has sewerage though every house is not connected.

Street View

Our Husbands

Our husbands work as farmers raising potatoes, quinoa and habas – I think they are called fava beans in the USA. Others are herders of sheep, alpacas and llamas and others leave Mañazo to work in the mines. A very few, like my husband have professions like mechanics, shoe making and teaching.

How & Why Did Artesania Pachamama Begin?

The Puno Region is known to be one of the poorest in Peru. In the 1960’s and 70’s, because of the high child mortality and because rural women were uneducated and exploited, Caritas Peru began Mother’s Clubs. These clubs offered women pre-natal care, education and food from the USA.

Sister Mary Martin, a Sister of Charity nurse, founded our first Centro Materno in Mañazo in 1977. In 1979 she obtained 10 hand knitting machines and 10 sewing machines from US aid and began classes in sewing and hand knitting so that we could make things for our families. Artesania Pachamama grew out of this beginning and we still use some of the sewing machines.

In the early 1980's we experienced three years of disaster.

Drought one year, flooding the next and hail the third destroyed our crops and animals. The food that Caritas gave to the Mother's Clubs was stopped and to make matters worse inflation soared.

We were worried about our families. Food was scarce and we did not know what to do. Desperate, we went to Sister Mary Barbara, our advisor, and asked her for help. Sister had us analyze our resources, talents and needs.

We needed income. We had alpaca wool and knew something about knitting. Alpaca goods sold well in the world market. We would form an artesania. Artesania Pachamama was born - but not without pain and a lot of help.

Planning the Artesania

First we had to learn to make a product good enough for exportation. Sister obtained a grant from her congregation to train us in different stitches, finishing and correct sizing.

The Government offices in charge of cooperatives helped us become a legal entity and another grant from the Presbyterian Church gave us funds for materials and a catalogue. We worked hard to learn and advanced slowly.

Our first overseas marketing attempt through a Peruvian woman in New York ended in failure. In 1991 during her home visit Sister Mary Barbara had all articles sent to Cincinnati. Friends there helped her sell and then on her return to Peru Sue and Barry Auer stored merchandise in their home and sold from there. When they had to give it up, Betty and Joe Rensing and Cheryl Roy took over for a few years.

Saint Pius X Involvement

In May 1999 after the Peruvian terrorists, The Shining Path, were defeated several parishioners from Pius X visited Manazo to reconfirm the sister - parish relationship which began in 1980. This was a critical point for Artesania Pachamama. The USA coordinators at that time in Cincinnati, Ohio could not continue because of serious illness. Who would sell their merchandise?

Michael Roberto and Sharon Weber returned from the trip committed to promoting Artesania Pachamama. The USA center was moved from Cincinnati to Greensboro, NC.

In 2000 Pius X volunteers and Sister Mary Barbara established Artesania Pachamama USA as a nonprofit Corporation in Greensboro, NC. Since then annual sales have increased dramatically. Now there is an Artesania Board in the United States. The members visited us in 2006 and together we are working a business plan to insure the long term success of the Artesania.

How are we organized?

We are a cooperative which means that the Assembly of Members makes all decisions. They elect a President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and heads of Technical, Quality, Store Room, Internal Activities and Exportation Committees.

Although we produce alpaca wool we do not have the machines and the skill to separate and treat it correctly, so we buy our wool from two factories in Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru.

The yarn we receive for a sweater is weighed and we must return the article weighing that amount. We work at home or while watching our animals and bring our work to or Wednesday meeting where it is inspected. Our meetings are the social event of the week. Besides knitting we learn all the news and gossip.

We hand knit to export, embroider, and hand wash too.

When our sweater is finished it has to pass the Quality Control Inspection, then is washed and packaged by hand.

The export Committee packs the boxes which are sent to Lima where there is a lot of paper work to do, and when we hand over the merchandise to a Customs Broker. They send it by plane to Charlotte where it passes through Customs and is delivered to the Artesania Pachamama USA Board.

They sell to you. We thank you for buying our products. You help us support our families.