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Alimentos Pura Vida


Abejas Orgánicas


Bordados


Cerámica


Remedios Valen

 

Women & Nature need your support

Help Women & Nature is Viva Sierra Gorda´s donation program to build stronger cooperatives and protect the environment they depend upon. By increasing the skills needed, the self esteem and the entrepreneurial capacity of each woman, the donation has a positive impact on the household and community and encourages best practices from campesino to campesino, woman to woman. 

Buy from and visit the Network of Micro-Enterprise by Women & Nature in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, Mexico. Help build a healthy economy that benefits rural livelihoods and Nature.

 

 

In Winter 2011-2012, Mexican President Felipe Calderon distinguished one of Sierra Gorda´s women-owned and operated cooperatives with a national prize during the annual fair of the National Program to Support Solidarity Enterprises (FONAES in Spanish). One of the younger members received the award in name of the 30 women in the cooperative; she travelled for the first time from La Colgada in Pinal de Amoles County to Merida, Yucatan to proudly represent the outstanding performance of their rural enterprise, Embroidery with Nature Motifs.

Why to Buy Rural Products: 

The 638 rural communities in Sierra Gorda have no job opportunities, minimal education    , a dependency on remittances, and own 97% of the land in the most ecosystem-diverse Biosphere Reserve in Mexico.  35% of the population seeks work in the USA and big cities in Mexico to generate secure income for growing families back in the Sierra Gorda.  Subsequently, the migrant workers are primarily men and it is the community women who sustain the local economy while caring for their children and elderly in extreme poverty conditions in the rural mountains.  But families are receiving less from the outside and rural poverty is more dependent on the resources available next door in the forests and the semi-desert which means there is a growing threat on wildlife, biodiversity, soils and ecosystem health. 


 

Pure Life Foods (Alimentos Pura Vida) is a dedicated group of women living in one of 638 communities in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve.  Whereas local produce in this tropical ecosystem have little access to market and often rot in the fields, the community women are converting the foodstuff to make quality products with exquisite tastes and natural health  in mind.

 

Organic Bees (Abejas Orgánicas) is a regional initiative to recover the beekeeping (apiculture) tradition and improve the skills, management and infrastructure that benefit organic life cycles and agricultural production in the region.

Embroidery Inspired by Nature (Bordados con Motivos de la Naturaleza), was founded and continues to employ 31 women in an extremely poor community.  This successful cooperative was founded 6 years ago and has won national awards and international distribution for their high quality, original designs and effective management of a rural microenterprise.  

 

This ceramic workshop began as a collaboration of three generations of women in Soledad de Guadalupe, producing traditional pots and selling during the Sunday market.  As a cooperative, the partners have improved the equipment, diversified products and today their original designs are sold in Jalpan de Serra and Querétaro City.  They accept special orders for hand crafted products.

 

 

  Vale´s Remedies (Remedios Valen) is a family-run business in a small corner of a community in the Sierra Gorda.  Doña Vale produces a wide range of natural remedies ranging from drops, pomades, shampoos and ointments to treat health and beauty needs with natural herbs and traditional knowledge.

 

 

Viva Sierra Gorda is a project of   Earth Island Institute.