“As artisans we have learned to walk alone and how the business moves, that has allowed us to have vision. We do not want credit, we take our raw material from the environment and we combine what we can with what we sell, but we are not going to commit ourselves to a loan because then one loses. What we want are points of sale ”.
It is the position of the National Union of Artisan Producers (UNPA), a civil association with more than 5,000 unionized master artisans from all over the country, in the voice of the promoter Socorro Oropeza, who is also director of the international artisan fair Las Manos del Mundo, which for 16 years has been a meeting point in Mexico City for Mexican artisans with their similes abroad.
The need to reactivate sales is pressing. Carmen Meza, an artisan painter who usually sells in Coyoacán, has had to keep that primary source of income closed since April of last year. “The mayor’s office closed the space where he worked to avoid crowds that caused infections. Neither I nor other artisans have been able to work since then ”, he laments.
Ismael Rodríguez, a textile art teacher from Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, comments: “My community was isolated for three months as a preventive measure for the contagion of the coronavirus and sales fell as a consequence. Although the community opened its borders and we have electronic commerce, sales are still not at the same levels as before the pandemic broke out ”.
Both artisans, as well as dozens of teachers who have reported their situation to the Union, agree on an estimate of a drop in sales of between 80 and 90%, even despite the foray of many of them into electronic commerce. There is an unappealable link between the sale of handicrafts and physical contact with the pieces.
“Most of them are landless peasants: they come from the rural areas of Mexico and belong to some ethnic group, but they don’t have seasonal crops to support themselves. There are people who sometimes do not have food and cannot leave their house because they do not have enough to transport. Suddenly you are moved because there are such virtuous people, with such talented hands, but there is no fund to help them, ”Oropeza laments.
For this reason, the fair will assume, with all the necessary protocols, the 16th face-to-face edition from March 19 to 21 in the Olmeca 3 and 4 rooms of the World Trade Center in the Mexican capital, with the presence of around 250 artisan proposals from of a score of states and seven countries so far confirmed. The promoter’s confidence is that the public will know how to respond to the call.
They have traveled to grow
In the early years, the Union received financing from what was then known as Financiera Rural, a rural development banking institution of the Ministry of Finance, but which, with the reforms to the financial system in 2013, ceased to be its main source of support. A few weeks ago, the UNPA obtained approval for the formation of a grantee with which they can raise funds by donation.
“With this grantee we ask private investment to support us. With a million pesos a year we would not sell the stands, we would do it by competition, that those who deserve to take their place come without having to spend anything other than their transfers ”, shares Oropeza.
In the past, the union has allowed its artisans to travel to the world’s fairs to meet other creators, learn about their business models, sales skills and proposals. The same have been in L’Artigiano in Fiera, in Milan, that selling in Versailles, as well as they have traveled a large part of Europe and have arrived in China.
“That exchange enabled us, it made us want to do new things. Thanks to that, we were able to have a very clear idea of who we were competing with, where our crafts are located worldwide, what we had to do and what we had stopped doing. We realized that we were missing many things, for example, the presentation of the products. We do wonderful things, but we don’t have good packaging ”, he acknowledges.
For 15 years, at the request of the members, the UNPA has offered training workshops for the development of business plans, accounting and sales techniques. Right now the teaching of English is in the pipeline for those interested.
“It is a guild that we can boast internationally. We are one of the best artisans in the world. We deserve attention, we deserve not to haggle over prices. Help us with that ”, he finally invites.
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