Solidarity Connections
Maya Educational Foundation
The Maya Educational Foundation (MEF) supports the educational and professional advancement of the Maya people and neighboring indigenous cultures in southern Mexico, Belize and Central America, and sustains programs that foster study, preservation and understanding of those cultures. (www.mayaedufound.org)
MEF partners with Maya men and women who supervise groups of students in their communities. One such group is a high school scholarship program in Chenalho’, Chiapas, founded in 2009 in honor of my parents, Linnea and Woodrow, Eber. My father was a professor of accounting and my mother a kindergarten teacher. My mother embraced children with her whole heart and was passionate about seeing them realize their potential. Currently seven students receive scholarships in the program under the supervision of Antonio Pérez Pachitan and Manuel Arias.
New Mexico State University Museum.
Kent Hall, New Mexico State University at University Ave. & Solano Drive
575-646-5161, http://univmuseum.nmsu.edu
Each Fall at the New Mexico State University Museum, Weaving for Justice partners with the Museum and the Maya Educational Foundation to hold a sale of textiles from Mesomerica and Latin America that scholars and travelers have donated to us to sell to raise money for scholarships. MEF sees that proceeds from this sale reach the children of Chenalho’ as well as other marginalized and deserving students in Belize, Chiapas, and Guatemala. To donate textiles to this cause, contact weavingforjustice@gmail.com
In 2020 Weaving for Justice began collaborating with the NMSU University Museum to prepare an exhibit of Maya textiles from Chiapas, Mexico – “When a Woman Rises: Maya Weavers Creating Relationships Through Textiles.” Through textiles from various Chiapas townships as well as photos by and of the weavers, the exhibit explores how Tsotsil-Maya women of different generations and backgrounds use weaving practices to strengthen local communities and negotiate their identities in a changing world. You can follow along with periodic updates on the University Museum’s blog (https://univmuseum.nmsu.edu/news-events/news.html), as well as the Instagram and Facebook pages of the Museum and Weaving for Justice. The exhibit is up through August 1, 2022.
The Chiapas Photography Project
The Chiapas Photography Project (CPP) provides indigenous Maya peoples in Chiapas, Mexico with opportunities for cultural and artistic self-expression through photography. Since 1992, over 300 indigenous men and women from different ethnic groups and religious backgrounds have learned how to use photography as a mode of personal artistic expression, and many have undertaken projects that celebrate and engage members of their communities.
The CPP, based in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, was Founded by Carlota Duarte, a Mexican-American artist and a member of the Society of the Sacred Heart, an international order of Catholic nuns. The Project’s activities are both local and global in scope. CPP photographers have exhibited their work in their own towns, as well as in museums, galleries, and alternative spaces throughout the world. CPP also provides educational workshops and presentations, which educate diverse audiences about how the Project uses photography as a means to share and celebrate indigenous cultures.
In 2016 The Chiapas Photography Project began to teach weavers in Tsobol Antsetik, a weaving cooperative based in Chixiltón, Chenalho’, to take photographs. Together the CPP staff and weavers in Tsobol Antsetik produced three photo books in Tsotsil, Spanish and English — Our Clothing, Our Threads, and United Women Weavers. The three books are available for purchase on the Weaving for Justice web store: weaving-for-justice.org
Weave a Real Peace
Weave a Real Peace (WARP) is a global network of textile enthusiasts who value the importance of textiles to grassroots economies. In addition to raising awareness of the importance of textile traditions to grassroots economies, WARP members enage in conversations that result in action. (www.weavearealpeace.org)
In attendance at the WARP 2017 annual meeting in Oaxaca, Mexico, were Celia Arias Pérez and Claudia Pérez Pérez of Tsobol Antsetik (Women United) a weaving cooperative in Chixiltón, Chenalho’, Chiapas. WARP offered the young women scholarships to attend and to sell the textiles from their cooperative. It was their first experience at a gathering of weavers and textile enthusiasts from the United States, Mexico and Guatemala and they are still talking about it!
Go to weavearealpeace.org to read “Chiapas to Oaxaca – Textile Connections Changing Lives”
Latin American Solidarity Committee
The Latin America Solidarity Committee is a task force of the Western New York Peace Center located in Buffalo, New York. It grew out of the Pledge of Resistance movement against Reagan’s Contra war in Nicaragua. Later it broadened its scope to defending and educating about issues of justice in all of Latin America.
Locally it works on immigration issues and members coordinate with many other groups working for justice for farmworkers and other undocumented workers and families. It meets with State and Federal legislators to inform them about these local issues as well as Latin America region-wide human rights violations, ecological destruction, and economic exploitation. Monthly Coffeehouses present speakers with recent first- hand knowledge of issues of justice in hot spot countries in Latin America. Through these meetings, personal contacts, its web site (www.lascwny.org) and emailings LASC informs people about actions that need to be taken in order to support sisters and brothers in Latin America. Through two annual events it raises funds for humanitarian aid, support of national sister organizations, such as Weaving for Justice and The Maya Educational Foundation. Its members are committed to non-violent resistance.
Go to LASC for information about the April coffee house presentation by Christine Eber and Laura McClusky.
Mexicolore
As part of my work with Weaving for Justice, I’ve been collaborating with Mexicolore, now believed to be the longest-running peripatetic teaching team in the United Kingdom. The organization has worked with around 250,000 children since being established in 1980 by Mexican Graciela Sánchez and her British partner Ian Mursell. Their interactive workshops are heavily artefact-based. For example, the team dress a group of girls in traditional huipiles (see photo above of girls in Brushwood Junior School in Buckinghamshire, England) and explain the history and meaning of their woven and embroidered designs. In a new initiative the team have begun gifting to each school a small, hand-woven textile from a Chiapas collective, brocaded with a sacred symbol – the toad – with the aim of drawing the school’s attention to the modern plight of traditional weaving groups in Mexico and Central America, with their deep roots in ancient Maya culture.” https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/
Border Servant Corps
I am a former Board member of the Border Servant Corps. Since retiring in 2023, I’ve been giving presentations, along with other Weaving for Justice volunteers, to students and community groups who come from throughout the United States to the border to learn about immigration and human rights. We share with them our work helping Maya weavers and students continue to live with dignity in their home communities and not be forced to migrate. At the conclusion of each session, the students have the opportunity to shop for a souvenir in our store located at First Christian Church in Las Cruces. Below is a photo of students from Menlo School in Menlo Park, California who participated in an immersion experience in May 2025. Rafe, the student in front, is wearing a donated caftan from Moracco that he purchased to raise funds for scholarships for Maya youth.
