Honduras Threads creates jobs for Honduran women so they can earn enough money to purchase food, school supplies and medications for their children and families and so realize the dignity and self-respect that comes with being able to be successful providers for their families.
Over the past 20 years, Honduras Threads has returned $700,000 to the Honduran women who participate. The women make hand-embroidered pillows, table runners, placemats and other textiles. Honduras Threads sells the items they make and provides raw materials and technical assistance.
Impact
All proceeds from sales go to the women. In turn, the women donate back 30% of sales to Honduras Threads to help pay for raw materials, sales and marketing and technical assistance.
At first, the Honduras Threads approach was to work with groups in five locations outside the capital city of Tegucigalpa. Because Honduras Threads wanted the women to own their own business outright, in 2017, it helped the women form their own member-owned social enterprise incorporated under Honduran law. The enterprise name is Arte y Creatividad or AyC for short. Now the five groups work together as one.
In addition to paying themselves for the labor they put into each item, profits are distributed to all members in the form of dividends.
Honduras Threads volunteers return year after year to the rural communities where the women live and work to teach additional skills, including how to design and market new items and how to track costs and revenue. Honduras Threads grew out of a church mission trip.
Each year, Arte y Creatividad owners may apply for grants to pay for up to half of the costs of education for their children or themselves . The costs include uniforms, school supplies and, for older children who must go to school in the city, transportation. This year Honduras Threads will distribute $7,000.
In providing technical assistance, Honduras Threads looks first to Hondurans. To bring expertise from North America without first attempting to locate a Honduran, is to take money from Hondurans who need to make a living. Hence, Honduras Threads has three Hondurans on the ground in Honduras who regularly provide assistance with program needs. And it turns to other Hondurans for expertise when needed.
Honduras Threads and Arte y Creatividad use donated fabric in most of the items made. Doing so is a contribution to bettering the environment on Planet Earth. An estimated 83% of used textiles are thrown in the trash. It can take 200+ years for textiles to decompose in a landfill.
The donated fabric comes from plain folks cleaning out their closets to interior designers with substantial leftovers from specific jobs. Some fabrics cost $100 a year or more. Where there is enough fabric, it’s used as backing; smaller pieces become appliques.
Some seniors can use a lift and a colorful pillow is just the ticket. Where seniors have a minimum of furnishings, Honduras Threads donates pillows to brighten up a living room or bedroom. In turn, donors to Honduras Threads pay for the pillows.
Donate
Your dollars make a big difference and go a long way with Honduras Threads. Nearly every donated dollar goes farther in smaller organizations. You can actually see your dollars at work.
From sewers and artists to business people and social media experts, there’s a place for you with Honduras Threads. Sewers teach Arte y Creatividad members new ways of perfecting products. Artists, including craftsmen, create new products. Business people communicate the ins and outs of balance sheets and income statements. Social media experts are critical to marketing and selling merchandise.
From your storeroom after you’ve finished a big client interior design project or from your closet after spring cleaning or when you’ve finished sewing new curtains, we’ll take your fabric.
When you see us on social media – it could be Instagram or Facebook – like us and comment. It will help get the word out.
Shop our Pop-Up Shop in Dallas at the Sylvan Thirty Shopping area just off I-30 at the Sylvan Avenue Exit. We’re open 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. You’ll find items not in our online store!
Over the years, publications have written about Honduras Threads. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is the latest, publishing a front-page story coinciding with the organization’s 20th anniversary. The story also appeared near the top of their website. Sonia Nazario, Pulizer Prize winning author of Enrique’s Journey and an expert on immigration policy, points out Honduras Thread’s success. She calls on other non-profits and churches to start similar programs.
Our Beginning
The first sewing co-op opens in Santa Cruz Arriba as part of a multi-faceted mission trip from Church of the Incarnation, Dallas.
2002
A New 501(c)3
In 2005, Honduras Threads becomes a separate nonprofit to continue marketing embroidery in the US and meet demand for more co-ops in Honduras.
2005
Annual Training Begins
Starting in 2010, mission teams from Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church begin to travel annually to the Honduran co-ops to teach new skills to the women.
2010
Arte y Creatividad Formed
In 2017, Honduras Threads becomes incorporated under Honduran law as a member-owned social enterprise, Arte y Creatividad. The women own their own business outright, and the five groups can work together as one.
2017
A Growing Social Enterprise
Today there are more than 40 women working in the social enterprise Mujeres Artesanas Arte y Creatividad in rural communities near Tegucigalpa, the capitol city of Honduras.
Today