New Hopes for the New Year in Y’abal

Our 2023 

2023 was a year full of challenges and difficulties for our administration and the weavers of Yabal. Business was not where we would have wanted it to be. Unfortunately, the economy for home decor was not a help to our industry. Despite this devastating fact, we at Yabal stayed busy. Busy might have looked like drinking some tea, sharing a bag of Xelapan delectables and getting into some important reflection. It involved asking some important questions. How can we stay alive? How can we continue to support the communities through this? Honestly there was a lot of brainstorming, because taking action often involves spending money. When there is no money to spend, you have to make important, careful decisions, and take a look at what you have in front of you. We were able to play around with some scraps of fabrics to create new products including blouses, tote bags, our heart shaped ornaments, and earrings. We could support some of the weavers with creative work by sending already purchased thread and yarn and creating embroidered items such as our new wine bags… Our goal and focus were on creating smaller, more accessible items that will please the eye and budget while still being fair trade, sustainable, and practical for our wholesalers and their clientele. It was exciting to watch our store change over the months as little by little some items were sold, restocked and newer items made the storefront a little more colorful and cheerier. 

New Hopes for 2024

New products- Items that came about this past year and are now beginning to sell are hair scrunchies and headbands, travel fanny packs, blouses, and embroidered tote bags and wine bags!

New collaborations- We are excited to have started the year with a couple potential new clients and receiving a few orders from our loyal ones. We are starting to see some new collaborations knocking on our (e-mail) doors. 

More visitors- During the months of November and December, we had a few more visitors in the store here in Quetzaltenango, which felt great and was a wonderful support to the artisans and the organization. 

New projects- We are currently working on some grants to build a rainwater collection system in the communities of the weavers. This project is rooted in ancestral techniques and would benefit the community helping them to apply sustainable water usage in their daily lives since we have seen a recent struggle in the communities like Pacutama and Chuicutama to access water from their main source. 

New embroidered wine bags with handle at Y’abal.

How to Support Y’abal

We want to remind you of ways you can help the communities Y’abal serves. 

Become a client

If you have a fair-trade store or value fair pay to artisans that make the products you sell, send us an e-mail. We would love to collaborate with your business and put work into the hands of the weavers. In addition, we have wholesale catalogs and a plethora of options and colors if you or your business are interested in working with custom design, too!  Email: yabalhandicrafts@gmail.com 

Donate

Donations coming from outside of Guatemala can be paid through a wire transfer or visit the donate link on our website to donate through our credit card servicer, QPAY. QPay does take a 6% commission on these types of donations so, if possible, a wire transfer is preferable. Donations can be specific to a project if you desire. Additionally, you can donate specifically to the student scholarship program through our Go Fund Me campaign. This helps middle school and high schoolers in the communities attend school and pay for their commute and materials.  

Links to donate:

Donate – Yabal

Email yabalhandicrafts@gmail.com about wire transfer details.

Campaña de Hannah Joy Fuentes : The Gift of Education for Youth in Guatemala (gofundme.com)

Give us feedback through this link

https://forms.gle/Uamp7TiTbhZaxBqR6

If you visit our store or make a purchase, we would love your feedback. You can support us by filling out the survey above your Yabal experience. We also offer a 15% discount for a future purchase at Yabal once you fill it out through this link: 

Spread the word about Yabal

Share our social media posts, tag us when you visit the store, tell others what we are doing, etc. 

Yabal supports over 80 Mayan women artisans with our fair trade organization in Guatemala.

Yabal’s Mission: Yabal Guatemala promotes the empowerment of indigenous women and their families in rural Guatemalan highland communities through a focus on their economic self-sufficiency. We believe that women are the center of the family and home with the greatest influence over the success of their children- the future generation of the community. We focus on the economic independence of women, education, food security, and the promotion of entrepreneurship as paths towards sustainability and poverty reduction for rural indigenous communities.