A fair-trade label that seeks to empower women both financially and creatively.
Created by women
who were Created
for a purpose.
The Story
Hi! I’m Audrey, the director of Created. In 2012, I was first introduced to Puerta Abajo when I traveled to Guatemala on a mission trip that summer. In order to obtain enough funds to go, I knitted and crocheted gifts that I sold to family and friends. As a result, I raised $3000 and was soon made aware of how effective and efficient my endeavor had been.
Just a few months before the summer of 2014, I started thinking back to my fundraising efforts and the idea soon came to me to place the framework of this system in the hands of the women in Puerta Abajo. If I could support myself, my goals, and my desires through such a simple process, couldn’t they too also benefit from learning a skill like crocheting? This idea marked the birth of Created. I traveled back to Puerta Abajo a month later and taught women in the village how to crochet through a week long session of classes. The women were so eager to learn that 40 showed up on the first day! When I collected all of their products at the end of the week, I couldn’t help but notice the overwhelming amount of passion that each person had put into their work.
Most women in the village don’t have a substantial way of making money or providing meals for their families; therefore, they often live solely on the $5 a day or less that their husbands earn. I believe that this project and label is an opportunity to allow the women of PA to support themselves and take pride in providing for their families. Created isn’t just a cycle of producing, selling, and providing, it is a way of letting these women feel the worth that they were created to recognize and live joyfully in.
