GFW | Newsletter | August 2003 | Producing Chocolate and Change

INDIGENOUS RIGHTS

Grupo de Mujeres Serranas Productoras de Chocolate Flor de Cacao, Yuvila, Oaxaca, Mexico (Cocoa Flower: Sierran Women Chocolate Makers)

In Yuvila, a town in Oaxaca, a group of indigenous Zapotec women combined forces to change their economic conditions. Building upon the deeply rooted tradition that mixing and sharing chocolate drinks holds, they decided to make and sell their own chocolate.

"Earning an income meant that we could support our families, but it also meant that we could intervene in the decisions of our home," says Carmen Lopez Garcia, one of the members of the cooperative called the Grupo de Mujeres Serranas Productoras de Chocolate Flor de Cacao. (Cocoa Flower: Sierran Women Chocolate Makers)

Although the indigenous people of Mexico make up 10 percent of the population, they live on the economic outskirts of society. In Mexico's difficult economic times, indigenous people have suffered disproportionately, often having to leave their home communities to search for work in northern Mexico or the United States. Indigenous women are left to bear the burden of raising families, and lack opportunities for earning money. The women of Flor de Cacao import the raw ingredient for making chocolate, cacao, from the southern state of Chiapas (whose climate is hot enough for cacao to grow). In a factory made of local wood built by their husbands and sons, they wash, grind, roll and shape the cacao into bars of chocolate. Some of the chocolate also contains powdered almonds and cinnamon. But chocolate is not their only product.

As they work, the women talk with one another about obstacles that have tended to remain unspoken—whether that be the discrimination imposed by some traditional customs, domestic violence, or the challenges of developing a woman-run business. In this way, the women produce ideas and solutions that transform their lives from the inside out. Their vision and determination is especially potent because even within their own communities, women cannot inherit land or hold positions of power.

Recent floods in the area damaged the roof of the factory. As rain leaked into the factory, their chocolate was ruined. In 2003, the Global Fund for Women provided the group with $9,000 to help them rebuild the factory and expand plans for marketing their product.

Grupo de Mujeres Serranas Productoras de Chocolate "Flor de Cacao" S.C.
Carmen Lopez Garcia
Yuvila
Independencia No. 8
Ixtepeji
Ixtlán de Juárez Oaxaca
Mexico
Phone: 951 41120
Fax: 951 51 31730 c/o Martha Calleros
Email: asetecooax@infosel.net.mx

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