Indigenous Women Launch a Furniture-Making Business in Mexico

LOL KOÓPTE’ indigenous women’s cooperative When ten indigenous Maya women came together in 2018 to form Lol Koópte Muebles, a furniture business in Quintana Roo, Mexico, they knew they had a great idea: They would use cut-offs (leftover timber) from the local FSC-Certified sawmill to make home décor items and furniture. Not only could they help support their families, they could do so in a way that protected their area’s magnificent forests, since the communally owned land and sawmill they would be working with, Petcacab, harvests and processes all its wood responsibly. But as any business owner can tell you, consumers can only buy your products if they know they exist. So when the women saw an opportunity to apply for a grant that would help Lol Koópte market its wares to retailers on the Riviera Maya, a popular tourist destination, they jumped at the chance. At the end of 2018, Lol Koópte learned that it won one of 42 market-oriented grants from the World Bank Strategic Climate Fund’s innovative financing program, the Dedicated Grant Mechanism (DGM), for which the Rainforest Alliance is the executing agency in Mexico . Indigenous Maya women entrepreneurs in charge As part of the […]

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