Heather Parr was in Guatemala as Hurricane Stan struck in October 2005. Here she shares her account of how the local community she has got to know in Sololá has undertaken the task of rebuilding their lives and their future.

MoSTANcilla currently consists of 13 groups of 5-7 women who were all made homeless by Stan. Every Monday and Friday afternoon they come to drop off and get paid for the work they have done and pick up their beds for the next week. As the groups are generally friendship groups or family it is also quite a social occasion. Of course the youngest children come too. Some of the late teens attend school in the afternoon, so they come in the morning instead so as not to miss out on their education.

Many women have a limited variety of styles so we have arranged classes where women are paid to share their expertise with others in the group. In the last class 32 women participated. We have been establishing rules for quality control and for fair payment of the women. We are currently paying a rate per item, with the idea being to share the profit fairly amongst the women on a quarterly basis. The first profit share is in March.

The main concern for us right now is to ensure a sustainable market. We have had some success in placing the products in hotels in the city and Antigua, and individuals and organizations such as Miracles in Action have supported out work by giving us a trial order. I am also trying to establish the tax rules for importing into the UK- any experience that you might have to share in this respect would be very welcome! We are also in the process of designing a website to exhibit the ladies’ designs online. The future plan is to establish an official cooperative association and to ensure our accounts are kept carefully, so that after two years we can apply for Fair Trade accreditation. 

We are also looking for an interested volunteer who maybe interested in working with the cooperative for a minimum of 6 months (although a year would be preferable) starting in July 2006. This would suit a Hispanic studies student with an interest in fashion and design who aspires to work in sales and marketing in the future. 

It will be many years before this population recovers from the destruction that was caused by STAN. However in the meantime we hope that MoSTANcilla can play a small part in the replacement of material goods, and by providing employment and a support network for this particular group of women in the psychological recovery process.

For information you can visit Heather’s blog

Or for further information about reconstruction work in Atitlan since Stan

Heather Parr was in Guatemala as Hurricane Stan struck in October 2005. Here she shares her account of how the local community she has got to know in Sololá has undertaken the task of rebuilding their lives and their future.

Over the next three weeks we help 150 men get back to work. At this stage the town hall also starts to give out tools, so we switch our focus to the women knowing that the remaining men are receiving support from other places. The women either weave or make beaded jewelry or ‘mostacilla’ as it is known in Spanish. A local hotel owner is coordinating a project with funding from ECO and Oxfam for the weavers so we concentrate on the bead makers. 

The same day that we take this decision in mid November, I hear that my ex pupils at Monkseaton Comnunity High School in Whitley Bay have organized a series of fundraising activities and have made £650. We use this money to buy needles, threads, scissors and of course, beads for the affected women.

We invite ten women who we know to be truly affected to invite five other friends or members of their family who are affected to form a group. Word gets around and we end up with 88 ladies, many of whom are new widows, teenage orphans and all of whom have lost their houses and suffered trauma. Their stories are incredibly moving. It is our intention to simply give them the ‘mostacilla’ so they can start back at work again. But John Bound from www.gypsyrose.com a wholesale trader in the States seeks me out and tells us that he wants to buy directly from the women.  He makes a generous donation and more importantly makes me think: what if I could help the women access direct sales?

I do a bit of investigating and the corresponding maths. The women are often paid as little as 2 quetzales (about 20p) for an hours work once they have paid for their materials. The traders on the other hand, will often make double this when it is sold on.   I also discover that many NGOs operating in Guatemala sell Guatemalan produced ‘mostacilla’ to raise money for their development work projects.  However for some reason, they do not seem to make the connection that by buying from traders at the lowest possible prices they are exploiting one group of people to benefit another.

Can I raise people’s awareness and convince them to buy at a fairer price from the women direct?  In this and by finding other markets to sell directly we could potentially quadruple the women’s earnings. This is the beginning of our association MoSTANcilla. 

For information you can visit Heather’s blog

Or for further information about reconstruction work in Atitlan since Stan

Heather Parr was in Guatemala as Hurricane Stan struck in October 2005. Here she shares her account of how the local community she has got to know in Sololá has undertaken the task of rebuilding their lives and their future.

It’s Sunday 2nd October 2005 and I arrive in Santiago de Atitlán, Sololá Guatemala intending to spend three months working as a volunteer.

It starts to rain at about 2pm and doesn’t stop for five days. In this time over 600 people in my new community are killed, and between 3,000 and 4,500 people are made homeless as a result of a devastating landslide in Canton Panabaj. I arrived with Hurricane Stan. 

Stan cuts us off for the best part of a week. The phone lines are down, the power is off, the roads are closed, the market is shut and nobody anywhere else knows what is happening to the town. Everyone from every walk of society does what they can to help, whether that’s carrying water, washing dishes, sourcing food, chopping vegetables, or taking bleach to the shelters. I see a polio stricken beggar woman crawl to the town hall and donate 15 quetzales (approx. £1.50). Everyone gives what they have to help the people of their town. 

After 3 days the power returns and we try and get word out about what has happened. I write to the BBC on their website, but by the time they arrive – eight days on- and interview me we are old news. The Kashmir earthquake has happened and in comparison, the Stan tragedy doesn’t count as news.  I ask friends and family for help knowing that if we don’t even make the news, we can’t expect to receive much aid.

Food starts to get through as the press arrive. The next ten days are spent distributing food, but it is clear that the people are not going to receive much long term. We need to help the people affected by Stan, or the ‘damnificados’ as they are emotively being called, back to work. As we give out one of the last donations of food, we interview the people as to what equipment they need to work. My wonderful friends, family and colleagues come through at the same time and we use the initial donations to buy tools for the men so they can go back to their jobs in the fields. 

I give them three tools and offer the fourth on micro credit so that they have what they need to go to work. We maintain the contact in case we manage to get more aid. At the same time an Irish volunteer arrives, also with funds from home and we set to work together to collect information as to who needs what, and as far as possible to monitor who has received what from whom, although this proves difficult. This information means we are able to tell passing tourists what is needed and helps us access funding from German association Probigua and from a generous private British donor.

For information you can visit Heather’s blog

Or for further information about reconstruction work in Atitlan since Stan

"Alternatively you could support one of the many events that are taking place.

• Sunday 23^rd April Don Rush will run for the 26^th time in the London Marathon with his long time running partner Rush Yadave. They are grateful for sponsors in support of the Lenten Project. As two of the ‘evegreens’ they will get to start with the elite runners.
• Saturday, 29^th April Grand Jumble Sale — 11am St Margarets Church Hall.
• Saturday, 21^st May Family Fun Day — 12.00 onwards.

Thank you for your support and interest."