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History
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The Beginning ..
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The original idea was developed by a Spanish Missionary, Isabel Martin, from the
congregation of the “Missionaries of Christ Jesus” and a group of women of the slum
in 1984. A study revealed that most of the women in the slum were victims of domestic
violence and extreme poverty. The “lucky” ones who were able to work performed house
service for a scarce salary, insufficient to maintain themselves and their children.
Therefore, the main idea suggested by some of the affected women was to develop
a way to make a living so that they could become economically independent. This
would allow them to escape the situation of domination and bad-treatment given by
their husbands, as well as to fight for their own and their children’s nourishment
and education.
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The 80s: These were the founding years of the organization, aimed at building
trust and creating good relations with the community. Work was performed under the
direction of a local organization called Jeevan Nirvaha Niketan (JNN), who provided
us with a list of children who did not often attend school. Those children, encouraged
by their mothers, had to work in order to bring money home. Several non-formal educational
activities were started with this group of children. Periodical meetings allowed
us to access their mothers not only to discuss the children’s evolution but also
to get to know their own problems. Thanks to that direct contact with the women
in the slums, we realised that most of the husbands were irresponsible with regards
to their economic duties as well as disrespectful towards them. Among husbands,
many were alcoholic and beat their women.
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Women were indefensible in this condition. They had to find ways to bring some resources
to the family by performing small jobs and house service, which is very badly paid,
and is one more form of women exploitation. It became a need to reach economical
self-sustainability. After several community meetings, the first Women Self Employed
Cooperative (WSEC) was created under the direction of JNN.
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Given the very low level of self-esteem of the women, the next step was to create
and keep the interest among them so that they believed in themselves and in the
fact that they were actually able to make a living in a decent and stable way by
creating a production centre. Two pioneer women together with Sister Isabel Martin
started sewing courses, attended by the mothers of the children of the JNN School,
creating a production group of clothes, soft toys, handicrafts, etc. These products
reached the national and international markets, like Spain, France or Germany, thanks
to sister Isabel’s networking. Within a few years demand increased enormously among
the slum women and many others joined the project. Even a group of women from a
distant slum, Jeri Meri, approached us to apply for help to create their own cooperative,
which became the second one.
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The 90s: The number of both, women and cooperatives, had increased considerably
and they were able to manage themselves. It was time for WSEC to get registered
as an independent organization. In the previous years, all activities had been performed
under the surveillance of Jeevan Nirwaha Niketan, a registered charitable organization.
Therefore, 1994 was an important year for the organization that changed its name
into Creative Handicrafts (CH): a registered, non religious and independent non
governmental organization.
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The 2000s: With the new millennium they realized that the organization needed
to work as a unit with the community, although development begins by women, it does
not end there, as it is important to include their children and husbands in the
process. In this sense, the next step was breaking into the primary education field,
health assistance, sponsorship for children’s education, saving and micro-credits
groups for women, adults’ education, etc, helping 740 families more. Till then,
all the activities focused on economic development, essential basis but not the
ultimate goal. At this point, several innovative projects were launched around three
axes: 1. Community development program; 2. Economic development program; 3. Capacity
building program. In addition, a food catering and delivery project, Asli Foods,
was born as an employment alternative to those women that, for several reasons,
cannot get involved in sewing activities.
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