1. Presentation

The municipio (county) of Charalá is located in the south of the department of Santander. It is a rural area in which, next to haciendas where cattle is extensively raised and sugar cane is grown for the production of panela (a non centrifuged raw sugar), subsists a vast number of people who live only from food crops landowners permit them to sow alongsidethe sugar cane. Part of this population has some land of its own; the majority only has access to a plot of land through verbal sharecropping agreements.

Charalá presently suffers high unemployment due to a decline of agriculture brought about by the advent of extensive cattle rearing which is monopolizing most of the land.. Cane cutting and panela production in the sugar mills are activities exclusively undertaken by men, so there is a strong prejudice according to which agriculture is a male activity, although women also take part in planting, weeding, harvesting food crops and preparing food for the workers in the fields and sugar mills. The few paying jobs are available only to men, not women.

In this patriarchal social and cultural context, the women of Charalá who belong to the “Corporación de Recuperación Comunera del Lienzo” (Comunera Corporation for the Revival of the Traditional Cotton Textiles; the word “Comunera” refers both to a point in local history related to an early anti-colonialist uprising of the XVIIth century, and the fact the organization is communitarian)–CRLC– have developed a project of a hand made production based on the revival of the cotton textile tradition which was about to disappearfrom this region.

The CRCL undertakes the entire cotton textile process. It plants local seeds, spins and weaves the fibre manually, dyes the threads with plants and markets its products.

Presently, 14 cultivators belong to the organization; fifty women spin and weave cotton at home, and twelve more weave in two collective workshops, one belonging to a group of women of a sector called El Salitre, and the other located in a rented facility in Charalá. The members of the Corporation (market) their products and fulfil the administrative duties of the organization.

30% of the producers of the organization are women head of family; 70% are peasant women who receive no personal income other than what they earn from their participation in the textile production of the CRCL.

The production of cotton, yarn and fabrics has become a fundamental complementary income within the survival strategies of this region’s female population.

This is the context in which the present project has been developed. It is meant to strengthen the Corporation’s effort to restore cultural identity and create a means to generate income. A fundamental part of this process consists of creating a “Casa Comunitaria del Algodón y los Tejidos” (the Community House of Cotton and Textiles), a place for artisans to meet, to train, to manage the Corporation in its organizational and administrative aspects and to locate one of their workshops, whereas presently they have to pay a rent for an inadequate location, which means an important expense negatively affecting the Corporation’s incomes.

This Community House will also help to raise the profile of the cotton cloth workers, to expose its products and find new markets. Furthermore, it will be a place that will permit to discover and revive part of the regional culture, history and identity. This means the Community House will additionally function as an ecomuseum in which one will find objects, illustrations, fabrics, but can also observe the processes of production. The Community House will have a strong link with its surroundings through an interpretive trail that will explore the surrounding environment including the social and economic activities, as well as the conservation and environmental protection strategies implemented in the fields.

The Community House will also be a place of teaching and learning where regional schools and universities (to be found in the neighbouring towns of San Gil and El Socorro) will be able to develop the students’ interest, through which the local population will get involved as well and will be motivated to know and share this initiative. It will also be a manner for the community of Charalá to think of and believe in a better future, in which the proper value will be given to solidarity and the role of women in sustainable development.

Part of the educational activity of the Community House will consist of weavers visiting schools where they will develop activities with the teachers, such as drawing, story telling, clothing design, colour adorning of fabrics using a variety of techniques (screen, roller, etc.). During the school visits that will be organized to the Community House of Cotton and Textiles, there will be workshopsfor those who would like to learn how to spin and weave, how to use natural dyes, and how to decorate textiles.

In a country like Colombia where humanitarian and non-government organizations focus their attention on the problems of displaced rural population due to the internal conflict, it is important that projects like this one be taken into consideration, because they improve the quality of life within a population that has been unattended by the institutions for many generations.

This experience of cultural revival and hand made production first appeared in the early eighties when a research team of the Universidad Javeriana came from Bogotá and undertook a study ofthe traditional cottage industry of cotton fabrics in the Santanderprovince of Colombia.

This research instigated the revival of traditional, indigenous crafts and opened the door to the project of Adapted Rural Education that the “Obra Colombo Belga para la Infancia” (a Belgian NGO) developed in el Hogar Juvenil Campesino (Juvenile Peasant Hostel). For the promoters of this activity, the revival of this folk tradition meant a source of work, cultural identity and alternative development.

The idea of learning and reintroducing each phase of the process of production was adopted by a group of families of the Saltire, a rural district of Charalá. With the support of a team from the Centro de Estudios de Apoyo Popular, and with funding from the cooperative agency Pan para el Mundo, this group learnt from traditional artisans, tested tools and acquired know-how in each of the tasks textile production involved.

In 1991, the group finally managed to reclaim all the phases of the productive process and started producing the lienzo de la tierra, i.e. the traditional cotton fabric. The desire to enlarge and strengthen production induced the original group to spread its experience to the municipio’s capital. It promoted the creation of a new collective of weavers, fomented an increase in the number of spinners in the village and undertook the legal recognition of the organization. In November 1993, the government of Santander granted the organization its “personería juridical”, i.e. its legal recognition, under the name of “Corporación de Recuperación Comunera del Lienzo” (Corporation for the Revival of the Traditional Cotton Textiles).

Since then, the CRCL has been conducting and administrating projects that have permitted the increase and improvement of production. They have developed an internal organization and prompted a wider awareness of their organisation and its projects in the region.

The organization has improved the knowledge of traditional cotton and textile production, and has re-discovered ancient textile patterns and plant dyeing techniques. It has learnt about agroecology, has rescued three types of local cotton seeds and has been developing experiments in the protection of micro river-basins and environmental education in the region.

Presently, the Charalá workshops, both in town and in the rural areas, are producing beautiful cloths used as bedspreads, scarves, shawls, ponchos, shirts, etc. These products have received a deserved recognition on behalf of “Artesanías de Colombia”, (the national government institution that promotes traditional crafts) in 2002 when it awarded the CRCL the prize for “Artisan Mastery”; it also reserves a space for the Corporation in the recognized yearly Crafts Fair of Bogotá, “Expoartesanías”. In addition to a good acceptance in the national market, several foreign buyers have expressed their interest in the kind of product offered.

• At both the 2003 “Columbia Moda” fashion fair and the 2004 Milan Fashion show, Charalá fabrics were used by clothing designers.

This process has been accompanied by a component aiming at reviving aspects of the cultural identity, such an important point in a world in which globalisation is leading to a dreary uniformity. Recently, the Corporation won a Special Mention in the 5th annual prize of “Somos Patrimonio” (We are Patrimony) of the Convenio Andrés Bello.

As a first step in the development of this project, contact has been established with the Director of the cultural section of the Bucaramanga branch of the Banco de la República (the bank of issue, which has very strong cultural activity in Colombia); she expressed the bank’s interest in donating the elements of an exhibition realized in 1990 by the bank concerning the history of cotton in Santander, which would be a very great help to set up the museum part of the Community House of Cotton and Textiles. The Cúcuta branch of the same bank also showed its disposition to grant issues of the catalogue of this exposition which the Community House could sell to visitors in order to contribute to the creation of a publications fund aiming at strengthening the educational activities of the House.

3. General objective

Strengthening the process of revival of the cultural identity and of income generation initiated by the women of Charalá

4. Specific objectives

• Strengthen the organizational, administrative and productive abilities of the Corporation considered as a solidary enterprise.
• Purchase of premises that will facilitate the activities of the Community House of Cotton and Textiles.
• Create conditions that will permit the development of local processes of teaching and apprenticeship
• Spread information about the Community House of Cotton and Textiles bothregionally and nationally
• Create conditions that will guarantee the economic sustainability of the Community House of Cotton and Textiles.

5. Activities

These are the activities that will be undertaken in order to fulfill each one of the objectives

5.1. Strengthen the organizational, administrative and productive abilities of the Corporation considered as a XXX enterprise.

5.1.1. Get the organization evaluated as an enterprise and obtain advice in marketing and organizational development.

5.1.2. Create training programs for the craftswomen of the cotton fabrics in the following fields:

• leadership
• planning and enterprise administration
• technical workshops on textile diversification and broadening of the variety of colors to be used in production
• tourism
• workshops on cultural identity and strategic planning

5.1.3. Meetings will be organized in order to permit building a policy aiming at the development of the raw material needed (cotton and dyeing plants)

• Elaborate administrative rules and regulations for the usage of the Community House of Cotton and Textiles
• Find means to induce the participation and the feeling of belonging to the Community House of Cotton and Textiles of all the members of the different stages of production.
• Purchase of the premises that will facilitate the activities of the Community House of Cotton and Textiles.

5.2.1.Find, buy and arrange a building in the urban area of Charalá appropriate to the housing of productive and educational activities as well as the botanical garden and the ecomuseum.

• Development and production of a catalogue and a collection of samples of the products of the Corporation.
• Acquisition of the furniture that will be used for the storage of the Corporation’s production and to protect the articles in exhibition
• Receive, carry and possibly modify the panels that the Bucaramanga branch of the Banco de la República will donate
• Frame and efficiently protect the donated panels
• Collect the objects that will be exposed in the museum such as traditional tools of the textile craft, examples of ancient textile works, samples of the local textile tradition.
• Selection and setting up of relevant photographic documents of the Corporation’s archives
• Purchase of the furniture, showcases and other elements of protection of the museum exhibits liable to suffer from the environmental conditions of the region
• Purchase of the remaining editions ofVida y Muerte delAlgodón y los Tejidos Santandereanos, of Historia del Algodón en Santanderand ofColores de la Naturaleza para el Algodón
• Construction and installation of the signposting announcing the Community House of Cotton and Textiles
• Creation of a botanical garden of cotton and dyeing plant varieties
• Create conditions that will permit the development of local processes of teaching and apprenticeship

5.3.1. Qualification of the members of the Corporation to develop pedagogical workin schools and universities

• Creation of an interpretive trail through the rural area of the municipio of Charalá in order to understand the environmental problems and the social and cultural context of the cultivation of cotton.
• Transcription of the audiovisual documents of the Corporation to video (DVD or VHS)
• Development of and audiovisual presentation of the history of the cultivation of cotton and the making of textiles in Charalá
• Development of a video presentation of the history of the cultivation of cotton and the elaboration of textiles in Charalá
• Production, edition and publishing of a new version of the book Vida y Muerte del Algodón y los Tejidos Santandereanos that will include the information gathered since 1987
• Revision, edition and publishing of the reader Tejidos Charaleños
• Revision, edition and publishing of the reader El cultivo del Algodón en la Provinica Guanentina
• Spread information about the Community House of Cotton and Textiles both regionally and nationally

5.4.1. Development of a web page relative to the products of the Corporation for the Revival of the Traditional Cotton Textiles; it would include information about the museum and the local and regional tourist attractions

• Elaboration, edition and printing of a leaflet about the Corporation for the Revival of the Traditional Cotton Textiles
• Elaboration, edition and printing of a leaflet and guide to the museum, botanical garden and interpretive trail
• Elaboration, edition and printing of a leaflet addressed to schools and universities aimed at promoting the Corporation’s educational activities
• Diffusion of information concerning the Community House of Cotton and Textiles addressed to tourist agencies and publishers of tourist and cultural guide-books

5.5 Create the conditions that will guarantee the economic sustainability of the Community House of Cotton and Textiles.

5.5.1. Setting up of a boutique of textile crafts

5.5.2. Creation of fund of publications

5.5.3. Creation of a fund for the maintenance of the premises

5.5.4. Determination of the contribution of the income generated by the textile production to be allotted to support the Community House of Cotton and Textiles

5.5.5. Determination of the contribution of the income generated by pedagogic activities to support the Community House of Cotton and Textiles

5.5.6. Take steps with the municipal administration (especially the Municipal Cultural Council) to receive recognition and economic support

Bibliography about traditional textile production in the Santander department directly related to the Charalá case and the Corporation.

Pierre Raymond y Beatriz Bayona, Vida ymuerte del algodón y los tejidos santandereanos, two editions, (Universidad Javeriana) 1982 y (editorial Ecoe) 1987.

Banco de la República: Historia del Algodón en Santander (1990)

Beatriz Granados: Visión Histórico Cultural del Trabajo Textil en Charalá, Colcultura, 1991

Beatriz Granados: Tejidos Charaleños, Colcultura, 1994

Beatriz Devia: Colores de la Naturaleza para el Algodón, Fondo FEN, 1996.

Corporación de Recuperación Comunera del Lienzo

Ester Monroy, Legal representative

Calle 22 Nº 17-04

Charalá, Santander, Colombia.

Phone. (577) 725 87 53;

(577) 725 77 40; (573) 311 222 28 70

Consultants

Pierre Raymond

Phone/Fax (571) 561 91 59

Phone (Office) (571) 342 50 90

PO Box: AA 9305, Bogotá, Colombia.

e-mail: praymond77@yahoo.mx

website: http://pwp.etb.net.co/pierreraymond

Beatriz Granados

Avenida 13 Nº 144 – 42 Apto A 101

Bogotá, Colombia.

Phone: (571) 614 52 06

e-mail: beatrizydiego69@hotmail.com

Beatriz Devia

Sci D (natural dyes chemistry)

U. de Brussels

e-mail: bdevia@excite.com