Threads of Peru Blog

Threads of Peru has been working with its supporter, the trekking company Apus Peru for four years now - $15.00 of each Apus Peru tour goes directly to Threads of Peru and from us it goes towards helping the women in the communities.

For this reason we always encourage people that are planning a trip to Peru to take a look at the Apus website -http://www.apus-peru.com/ especially since they are now offering tours with 10% going towards Threads of Peru!

Here's what our friends at Apus had to say:

New Philanthropic Tours to support Threads of Peru work!

Its both excting and challenging to create a good itinerary for clients.

Apus Peru try to do it every day for their clients, as we design holidays that really become “trips of a lifetime” by working with people and finding out what they are interested in.

Now, Apus Peru have designed some itineraries that are genuinely unique and bring out the best in Peru so that visitors can see a different side of Peru – while contributing to a very worthwhile cause – Threads of Peru.

If you take these tours, you will directly support the people of the Andes! 10% of your overall tour price is donated to Threads of Peru.

These new Philanthropic tours include-

Andean Culture tour.  (14 days), this tour takes you from Lima to Lake Titicaca, and then onto Cusco where you will have the chance to visit remote villages (either by trekking or transport, depending on your fitness) where Threads of Peru works.  These tours have been created so that you can visit one of the many unique festivals that occur in Cusco, and are often not known about by the vast majority of visitors.  This tour provides a fascinating insight into the culture of the Andes.

For more info - http://www.apus-peru.com/tours/andean_culture_tour.html 

Hiking through the Andes

Peru Family Adventure (11 days) The name says it all – with this tour, families can take part in a whole range of adventures together, from easy downhill mountain biking, getting to know llamas and alpacas,  to seeing where honey comes from, as well as learning more about how children in another part of the world live.   While a visit to Machu Picchu is a highlight, kids often love the jungle excursions in the Amazon where they can see many beautiful native animals.

For more info - http://www.apus-peru.com/tours/peru_family_adventure.html 

 A biker on the trail

Adrenalin & Adventure in Peru (12 days).  This is a tour for those who LOVE challenging themselves – and what better place to do it, than in Peru?  In a short 12 day trip you can paraglide, surf, raft, hike, ride, climb, rappel, and zipline!!!   It’s a tour for those who don’t necessarily have experience, but like to learn something new, all the while surrounded by the amazing culture of the Andes.

For more info - http://www.apus-peru.com/tours/adventure_adrenalin_tour.html 

 Paragliding into the sunset

We hope to see you soon!

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Hi all,

Last summer we had some young American students visit the weaving communities that we work with, we encourage these kinds of trips to try and spread awareness of the beautiful work the women are doing in these isolated places and their difficulty to make sufficient income from their work to allow them to continue. Two students from this group later contacted us to ask if  they could sell some weavings on our behalf in their schools fair trade sale. The girls has this to say about the sale:

'Overall the sale itself was pretty successful, but overall I think the real blessing was being able to educate the girls at our school about Threads of Peru and Fair Trade. We were able to make a few presentations leading up to the sale. We also applied for a money from the funds that our school collects for dress-down days (when we are allowed to wear blue jeans or sweatpants if we donate a dollar). We're very excited to donate all of the money back to Threads of Peru. The bracelets especially sold quickly, and we would love to sell them again next year.'

A shot of the fair trade market at the girls' school

Our products on the table  

Here at Threads of Peru we would like to thank Amelia Visnauskas & Maddy Masaryk from Hathaway Brown School for their hard work in helping to sell the items and for raising awareness in their school!

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Thoughts at the beginning of 2012 “How did I end up writing the New Year message?” I wonder, as I ponder whether a New Year’s message is about the past or the future… and whether its even a New Years message, when you are writing it more than 30 days into the New Year.

Regardless, I forge on deciding a New Years Message can be about both the past and the future.

2011 was a big year for us, as we employed a fantastic Cusco based Project Manager, Amanda Zenick, and were blessed with the talents of two great volunteers, Fani Karaivanova, Textile Project Assistant & Community Liaison and Frankie Ginnett Assistant Volunteer Coordinator & Project Assistant who have all contributed to advancing the project considerably.

Here you can see Amanda Zenick and Fani Karaivanova working hard to measure everything at the entrega

The idea of having more people “hands on deck” is to relieve the pressure and hours worked on the founders, who are still completely voluntary. What actually happened is that the Founders moved onto new projects, including spreading the marketing of the project further!

This year our Ebay store was absolutely beautiful, thanks to the design talents of Angie Hodder and Adam Foster Collins, and of a number of photographers in Cusco, including volunteer Lynn Dao. In 2012 we will be expanding into an Ethical Community store and hope in the not too distant future to have our own store on our website!

We also should make special note of our patient Master weaver, Daniel Sonqo who put in a sensational year’s work, enduring our requests for different styles and dimensions, and then transforming these requirements into beautiful weavings with the women of our different weaving groups.

Here you can see Daniel giving a talk to the women in Chaullacocha at the pedido, he is asking them what they would like to weave. Due to the heavy rain this talk takes place inside the greenhouse!

As I look back over the year, there are many small and large successes, but in short – we have achieved a lot and have a lot of people to thank, not the least everyone who “put their money where their mouth is” and supported us by buying a fair trade weaving.

Each year the Project takes a weather directed hiatus for several months (January and February) as it’s difficult, if not impossible, to access the communities where we work. So currently we are busy planning, budgeting and dreaming about what we can create for the project in 2012. In general terms – we would like our women to continue improving their weavings, and for us to sell more of their weavings, which will in turn bring a better quality of life to their remote communities.

An example of one of the beautiful ponchos made this year by the women we work with.

Happy New Year everyone!

Ariana Svenson, Co- Founder

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