This Wednesday (January 18) I’m heading to Mexico to address a group of indigenous women (la Mixteca) in Epatlàn, in the state of Puebla, not far from the city of Atlixco, below the active volcano Popocatépetl. Although I won’t be at the Women’s March in DC, I’ll be doing my part south of the border, thanks to Bravo Mex and DICMA Trade.
In the region of the Mixteca, the majority of women are the mainstay of their family since most of the men (husbands, children, parents) are working in other states of the country or have immigrated to the United States to find work. Currently 80% of Mexicans who find themselves as immigrants in the United States belong to this region.
Our project here is the creation of a bamboo development and training center for women in the Mixteca region. In March, construction will begin of an ecotourism center that will become a self-sufficient aspect of the community, surrounded by the already-existing agriculture and to-be-planted bamboo plantation.
Our objectives are to use bamboo for the creation of economic development and empowerment of local women to provide economic stability in the region, as well as provide family stability in hopes to mitigate migration. We aim to motivate the local women, who live in one of the regions with the highest gender inequality in the country, by showing successful examples of bamboo cultivation and utilization, to give them hope, a new opportunity and to raise their standard of living = to give these women tools for their personal and economic growth.
Bamboo Women Unite!
¡Mujeres de bambú se unen!
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