Embroidering a sustainable life
Elile Torres García is a lively Peruvian woman from the Ayacucho highlands. She has run a traditional leather-working business called Sumaq Qara (‘nice leather’ in Quechua) for more than twenty years. The company trains local women in leather working and embroidery to help them have a better life.
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Originally, Sumaq Qara was a small-scale family business. The leather-working techniques were handed over from generation to generation. But the knowledge and means were lacking to put the end products on the market and to diversify the product range with techniques such as embroidery.
From the onset, production was combined with social concerns. Sumaq Qara often works with women who are the victim of domestic or sexual violence. In Ayacucho 60% of women are victim to partner violence. 1 in 3 women is the victim of sexual violence.
In a first phase, 15 organisations like Sumaq Qara received training through the Belgian-Peruvian programme to fight domestic and sexual violence (PILVFS). The goal was to increase the revenue of the women by strengthening their technical and productive skills and to foster their business acumen. Also, through self-help groups and coaching, the programme wanted to attack domestic violence by the root and to arm women against it.
With this extra support Sumaq Qara could grow. From a grassroots organisation of just 20 women, it has become a successful export business of 400 women. And Sumaq Qara keeps growing still. Elile Torres and her two sisters go to disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Ayacucho to train women. Later, these women end up working for Sumaq Qara.
For many families organisations like Sumaq Qara are a way out of poverty. In Ayacucho more than 60% still live in poverty, with an income below 2 US dollars per day . Sumaq Qara strengthens the position of women, empowers them and provides means to become independent, which gives their self-esteem a huge boost. But Sumaq Qara is so much more. It is a social fabric in which women of Ayacucho and their families can help each other.
Facts and figures
- The Integral programme to fight domestic and sexual violence in Ayacucho (PILVFS) is financed by Belgium and Peru. The programme is implemented by the Belgian development agency in cooperation with the Peruvian Ministry of Social Development and Women.
- In the first phase (2004-2008), more than 1,500 women were helped to escape poverty, through training in 15 organisations of all kinds (embroidery, guinea pig breeding, growing herbs etc.).
- In the second phase (2008-2012), the project has helped at the policy level, so services concerned are able to prevent and combat domestic violence. Almost 10,000 people (in ministries, police, education, healthcare centres, prevention and support services…) are involved.
- Budget: 1,965,000 €
