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Maria Alaniz

Taxco de Alarcon, Guerrero, México

Member of traditional craftswomens cooperative. We are village women, who have formed a production cooperative. We are the original designers and producers. Our community has been involved in handcrafts production since before we were born. To tell our story we would have to go back to the times of our parents and grandmothers. The Municipality of Taxco is one of the richest centers of artesanias in all of México. We are country women mostly from villages surrounding Taxco, especially Tecalpulco and Taxco el Viejo.

In the 1970s and 1980s our villages created the abalone jewelry set in alpaca metal; Our mosaic floral encrustations were well-accepted and went all over the entire world.

Our goal is to connect our rich handcrafts tradition to today's markets to provide for our families, so our children might live lives of dignity.

The cooperative was founded by Flavio Carteño Diaz in Tecalpulco in 1973. In the 1990's our cooperative sponsored the donation of ophthalmic medical equipment from the United States to our local Adolfo Prieto Hospital also a project to develop abundant clean water for the local rural people. We are trying very hard to make a success of our endeavor in order to have done something good that will benefit our families, our community; a project that will eventually benefit all productive hame-based persons of good will.

We have a complete GMail record of since january 2000; it shows that there were no complaints about late delivery, no complaints about quality, and no service complaints that were not immediately resolved. Even though, as expert productive jewelry designers and creators we are well-qualified to succeed, our cooperative found itself selling a below-cost in 2017 resulting in the depletion of raw materials (casting ingots, metal sheet and wire, abalone shell, lapidary stone, polishing compounds, jeweler's saw blades, grinding wheels, and so on.) The established practice had been to have all the materials replaced, as of the end of each year. The collapse of the cooperative was a huge blow to the fifteen families who derived their income from Artcamp production orders; Berta and her daughter went to Gudalajara for work, Paula went to Phoenix USA with her old father, and later to the O'Hare Airport area of Chicago. Adelberta died. Mago's son died and she became despondent. Some women are in their humble homes; our villages are extensive and with the public health emergency, at this time, we do not even know how every one of the members is faring. We are faithful people who know suffering while never surrendering hope. These videos are from 11 december 2021 so you can see how we are: https://www.youtube.com/user/ArtcampITStudios

We expect that when we finally succeed, we will demonstrate a practical economic model for other cooperatives and private individuals throughout Guerrero and throughout México.

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