Pure Art Women’s Association

Colombia

Pure Art is a company jointly owned by community associations made up of 600 Afro-Colombian women from Patia, Colombia, and a group of private investors. The women of Patia, in collaboration with Foundation Chemones Colombia, started Pure Art to generate employment and income for woman-headed households in the region. The primary objectives of Pure Art and its programs are to curb illicit activity and unemployment through job creation and training. In addition to generating an income in this way, the program also allows women the opportunity to develop their self-esteem, work towards independence, and foster stronger relationships with their families and communities. Pure Art and Foundation Chemones Colombia also work together to support community health programs, education, and the revitalization of rural infrastructure including irrigation and agriculture.

Community

All of the producers for Pure Art are women from the town of Patia in Cauca, the southwestern region of Colombia. Cauca is a region reliant primarily on agriculture— particularly sugar which is grown on large plantations. As farmers struggle to earn a living, many of them have turned to cultivating coca and the region is now rife with unemployment and illicit activity. Drug production has only marginalized further an already impoverished community.

Gourds

Pure Art produces two lines of products from native gourds: food packages for sweets and decorative objects for the home such as the colorful tealights you can buy through GGP. The fruit from which the gourds come has a strong, round bark which hardens into a tough shell when ripe. During pre-colombian times, the community used this tough shell to make canteens called totumas to store milk and water while the pulp was used for medicine. Today, the community collects the gourds when they fall from the trees and leaves them to dry naturally in the sun.