Vallegrande province in Bolivia is a meeting point between the country’s lowlands and highlands. Here, surrounded by rock paintings thousands of years old, local weavers carry on their own ancient art, hoping to keep their textile culture from extinction.
In early 2025, ATA provided a grant, through the Bolivian nonprofit CIDAC, to help Vallegrande weavers preserve, evolve, and share two distinct and endangered local weaving techniques that use sheep wool and the zunkja palm.
Thanks to your donor support, CIDAC has started working closely with Vallegrande weavers to conduct intergenerational workshops and to research and document their traditional weaving techniques. According to CIDAC executive director Paula Saldaña Fernandez, this work to “wake up the memory” of artisans and bridge generational gaps has already proved transformative for other weaving communities, and it is expected to do the same for Vallegrande’s weavers.
Above: Cover and pages from an ATA-sponsored booklet documenting how to make traditional hammocks.
The documentation, in particular, will be used to promote and commercialize the weavers’ products through CIDAC’s ARTECAMPO store, ensuring sustainability and recognition. This will help boost the sales of Vallegrande woven products that, according to CIDAC, currently aren’t the most sought after.
This year’s ATA grant comes at a critical time for CIDAC. High inflation rates are making it harder for the nonprofit to afford raw materials for weaving, and rising gas prices make it more difficult to travel between artisan communities. The organization’s other funding sources have also become more erratic and unreliable due to political issues.
Your support is helping CIDAC address these challenges. As a result, the Vallegrande project is becoming a driving force for safeguarding textile techniques, assuring the weavers’ knowledge is preserved and valued.
Image at top: A still from one of the documentaries created by CIDAC and funded by ATA.
