Partner Cooperatives

San Martin

The city of San Martín is an enormous shantytown outside of San Salvador. This women’s cooperative does talented paper-work, with a special emphasis on making natural and recycled paper. This includes a paper made from banana leaf pulp, and paper that they recycle from throw-aways collected at office buildings and from the streets. Despite its proximity to the capital of San Salvador, this group faces the challenges of dire poverty and lack of infrastructure every day, so your purchase makes a huge difference in the quality of life of its members.

Acosilva

This women’s sewing cooperative in the Mariona neighborhood of San Salvador designs and makes puppets and dolls. The cooperative was named after Archbishop Oscar Romero’s revolutionary secretary, Hermana (Sister) Silvia Arriola, who grew up in this neighborhood. Acosilva proudly owns their own building, though the women also have the option of working out of their homes if it is more convenient for them.

Shicali

This innovative group, which creates beautiful ceramic and clay pieces, is composed entirely of Salvadorans with disabilities. At Shicali the men act as the workers (creating beautiful pottery and ceramics), while the women are the managers of the operation. The beautiful ceramic pieces are truly a testament to Shicali’s unique spirit and dedication to overcoming the obstacles that face disabled Salvadorans. Shicali is sponsored in part by a grant from the government of Spain which is trying to help change attitudes about the disabled in El Salvador.

La Esperanza de La Ceiba

The name of this all-women’s cooperative means “New Hope of La Ceiba” (La Ceiba is both the name of the village where this group is located and a type of tree that grows in this mountainous cobblestoned town). The village of La Ceiba is a resettlement community that was developed to repopulate the area following El Salvador’s brutal civil war. Due to its status as a resettlement community, the ratio of women to men is very high. La Ceiba works in leather, wax and clay.

Tierra Blanca

Tierra Blanca means “White Earth” in Spanish, and the name of this little village comes from the fact that it is located in close proximity to San Salvador’s volcanoes where ashy earth is not uncommon. This all-women’s cooperative specializes in knotted jewelry. We feature their “pulceras” (bracelets) with beautiful wooden and ceramic beads. To expand the pulcera simply pull on both knotted ends. To tighten it, pull the slack string at the end of the bracelet.

Papaturro

Located near the colonial town of Suchitito, we have a special connection to the cooperative and community of Papaturro as one of our founding members helped to found this women’s group when she lived there for many years (she still has a home there). This cooperative makes jewelry (our popular thread crosses and bamboo & beads jewelry, and rosaries), and the women have a workshop in the village. Papaturro’s other major industry is piloncillo (unrefined sugar that is pressed into a cone shape).

Cooperativa Semilla de Dios

Located in the mountainous frontera town of La Palma, Semilla de Dios (literally “Seed of God”) is a 28-year-old organization which employs 27 associates. The cooperative was begun with the assistance of the Salvadoran artist Don Fernando Llort. Semilla de Dios owns their own forest-land where they harvest the wood for their handicrafts and then replant trees—thereby ensuring the future of their community and their livelihood.

San Ramón Women’s Cooperative

The San Ramon Women’s Cooperative lies at the foot of the San Salvador volcano in cashew- and coffee-growing country. The cooperative is also known as “La Esperanza” (“The Hope”). The women here specialize in the textile arts (including originally-designed hand-woven huipil cloth) and copper wire creations. Some of the popular items that we carry from La Esperanza include our passport carry bags, and copper wire crucifixes and pendants.

Guarjila

This all-women’s cooperative is located in Departamento Chaletenango—one of the hardest hit areas during the war. The women of this cooperative feature beautiful handcrafted items such as clergy stoles, bookmarks and T-shirts. They work in a compound that was built as an homage to the arts in El Salvador. In the compound there is a workshop, a community theater, and a community meeting place.

Concepción Quetzaltepeque

This is one of the newest groups with whom People of Hope Crafts is working. This all-women’s cooperative works with textiles, particularly doing impressive crochet-work. After just one year, their crocheted purses have become one of the most popular items that we carry, and have generated several thousand dollars in earnings for this talented group! Concepción Quetzaltepeque is named after the village in which they are located, which interestingly combines Spanish-Catholic and Mayan influences in its name.