Oxlajuj B’atz’ (Thirteen Threads in Mayan language) is a non-profit indigenous women’s empowerment and non-formal education organization based in Panajachel, Guatemala. Thirteen Threads is constituted by 13 Maya women’s groups throughout rural Guatemala. It has been founded with the aim of helping widowed women and their families, after the 36-year war and genocide that happened in Guatemala. The organization is entirely managed and carried on by women coming from Maya communities in rural towns with a high rate of poverty, discrimination, lack of education, health care, political participation, and jobs.
As they apply fair-trade principles in their activities of handicraft and entrepreneurship, the sales of their handicraft products go partially in support of the social and development programs carried on in the Maya communities. By sustaining Oxlajuj B’atz’, you can participate actively to the empowerment of Maya women in their communities, and consequently to the creation of an inclusive and more just Guatemalan society.
