Mission Guatemala: Uniform Project - What is it?
February 3, 2010
What is the mission?
Mission Guatemala is an outreach of Goods of Conscience apparel that involves the making of clothing in New York for Guatemalans of Guatemalan fabric. Why? Preserving an ancient culture. Mayan weaving is a world treasure and in danger of being lost. In developing social fabric™ in 2004 Fr. Andrew O’Connor, a New York diocesan priest, saw that preserving a culture requires a cross pollination of culture. Sweatshops in poor countries create anonymous clothing that resurfaces later in the same counties as used and resold clothing. As a result Mayans can less and less afford their own traditional clothing, much less made with Guatemalan cotton. Making clothing for Mayans reinforces their identity as a culture. The reflective fiber in social fabric™ adds a North American accent to the clothing. Combats poverty. Buying Guatemalan cloth made of Guatemalan cotton provides both economically and culturally sustainable work for the communities of Chicacao and Panajachel where social fabric™ is made.
Why Uniforms?
On November 1st, the Catholic Fellowship of Choate, which I oversee with the Catholic students at Choate, held an All Saints Benefit Dinner to raise money for uniforms and books for the children of San Pedro Cruztal school in Chicacao, Guatemala. We raised $500 after raffling off a Tiffany cross and Starbucks cards. This is approximately 25 children’s shirts that we will make in our workshop and which I will bring down to Guatemala in December. Our making shirts out of their own fabric is of lasting significance to Mayans and is central to MIssion Guatemala.
The idea for the uniforms emerged from planning an outreach with Choate students. Uniforms allow the poor to attend school in Guatemala. The children there need to feel globally cared for. I am the Catholic chaplain at Choate. We organized a dinner to raise funds to make the uniforms. The mass following the dinner was offered for Horacio Villavincencio, the founder of Algodonas Mayas, the producer of the cotton that goes into Social Fabric. I would like to raise additional funding for food to help combat the near 80% level of malnutrition among Mayan children. (see Economist August 27, 2009 article) Chicacao is affected, but less so than other districts. We would like to design a school satchel for the children, a version of which could be sold at the event to support the effort. There are more than 500 children at the San Pedro Crutzal school in Chicacao. If each satchel contains $100 worth of a) uniform b) food allotment c) school supplies. Optimally that means we would like to raise $50,000 at the benefit dinner.
