Tecelãs do Carmo (“Carmo Weavers”) Gender Equity Project

In November 2016, Fundação Vale and Raízes Desenvolvimento Sustentável signed a contract aiming to boost the craft work social business that a group of women from Carmo started. Senhora do Carmo is a rural district located in Itabira, (Minas Gerais). Beside the beautiful landscapes of mountains, the prose, and the good food, there is also women with great talent for craft work.

The group has been selected for the second edition of the Equity Project due to its participation at the Agir Program, in Itabira; where we noticed the existence of a 100% feminine group who had a great will to start a business. But still in an early phase.

Raízes‘s experts organized group meetings and individual visits. Those were conducted in order to identify leadership, get to know the production, understand individual profiles and skills, as much as limitations, map conflicts, and, ultimately, build a clear picture of the starting point for the group.

In January, the work for a collective construction of a vision started. Among other results, this one came up:

To be recognized as weaver of excellence in Minas Gerais for the quality and innovation of the product we create, as women of fiber transformers of their lives and their community, and as a collective and successful entrepreneurship.

(Tecelãs do Carmo Vision)

Craft work implementation and product development

In parallel, the design workshop as been initiated through different stages, such as :

• Identity construction
• Identification of new material with local recourses (highlight on pitta fiber, bone, and horn)
• Creation of reference frameworks, brainstorming of products, modeling exercises, and sustainable fashion workshops.

The design process intends to follow the whole project so that the weavers can have the first prototype of their new collection in August 2017.

In parallel, the business will be boosted thanks to technical support in management, benchmarking and getting in touch with the market.