KIDS and FAIR TRADE

Lesson 2 - Maya Arts in Fair Trade Stores:

Maya arts and crafts traditions form the basis and background for production of the items sold in Fair Trade stores (Grades 3-5)

Background

Sometimes tourists visiting Guatemala think the arts and crafts being sold in markets and stores are made for them as souvenirs. Some are, but many others are used by Maya people day in and day out. The useful and beautiful items, as shown in the drawings of the coloring book, are part of the ancient arts and crafts traditions of the Maya people. The craft skills required to make these things have been handed down over centuries from mother to daughter and from father to son and within families and communities.

Such accumulated knowledge forms a heritage that deserves to be valued and saved to pass down to future generations, so that the Maya will continue to have the arts that so enrich their lives. That this kind of artisinal knowledge has disappeared in many other countries only makes Maya arts and crafts heritage all the more important. It also means that there is great urgency that Maya children today continue to have the opportunity to appreciate their arts heritage and to learn how to make traditional arts themselves.

It is precisely this "accumulated knowledge" that helps Maya artists and artisans to also have the creativity and "know how" to produce some newer kinds of items that are desired in countries outside of Guatemala.

Items that are used both by the Maya as traditional arts and crafts and sold in Fair Trade stores: see Maya Arts and Crafts of Guatemala pages 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 18, 23 and 24.

To see items that may be produced by artisan coops for sale to Fair Trade stores and are used very little by Maya people: see pages 16, 26, 29 and 30.

Maya arts and crafts are hand-made. This contrasts with craft items that are "factory made" — such as pottery, embroidery, or masks — which are mass produced quickly using machines and cost much less than hand-made crafts. You can recognize factory made items because they look exactly alike, a characteristic of machine made things. Hand-made crafts have some difference between items, a characteristic of being hand-made. Sometimes on a piece of pottery you can even see the marks of the hands that made it.

But the Maya could lose their precious craft skills that date back thousands of years, if they are forced, out of economic necessity, to work in the factories which now exist in Guatemala. In fact, many artisans, without opportunity to market their crafts or without land to grow sufficient food for their families, have had to migrate to the USA. Buying Fair Trade items helps to prevent that from happening and aids them to continue making their traditional arts and crafts and to make an adequate living wage.