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Proyecto Maria de Nazareth. In the village of San Juan Cotzal (Quiché) in 1991, 80 women, all widows and orphans for the cruel repression worked out in Guatemala by the hands of the army against the native inhabitants in the ‘80s organize themselves in order to survive with dignity and in order to go on and creating beautiful fabrics by means of the belt embroidery frame. In so doing they hand down the whole Maya cosmogony with colours and drawings: the sacred maize, the deers, the turkeys, and the condors, the rhomb which symbolizes the community, the x which indicates the union of maleand female.
To them being able to sell their materials means to try and avoid to spend the working season in the nearby coffee plantation, where they are obliged to go when the maize crop of the scarce community lands ends: both the working conditions and the accommodations are awful, many of them get ill, and they have to buy both the medicines and the food in the same plantation shop. It is quite common that at the end of the working season the workers are in debt with the plantation owner. The plantation is constantly garrisoned by gunned men.
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Besides weaving such women have learnt to sew making lots of objects, such as bracelets, pen-cases, rucksacks, multi-shaped bags, centrepieces, magazine-containers, towels, breakfast tissues. They are coordinated by the Nuns of the Sacred Family, who are deeply attentive to the integrity of the Maya culture and to the growth of the communitarian awareness.
You can order the objects of the Proyecto Maria de Nazareth by writing to: info@quetzalmodica.it
Favaré.
This mark is the result of a cooperation between Peppe Barone, gastronomer and philosopher from Modica of the restaurant ”Fattoria delle Torri“, and the Cooperative Quetzal.
Favarè is based on the value of relation:
That of friendship among the various subjects who try to carry it out with the contribution of both thought and action;
That between the local culture of Modica (with the bean legume in its typical cottoia kind) and the central American culture (the cocoa bean), which, even with their distance meet in the gastronomic field.
Favarè means creating and experimenting, diffusing knowledge giving value to the local cultures, supporting an economy which puts rights and equality at the core of its foundation.
In march 2006, inside the Favarè Project, we published the book “Pane e cioccolato. Pensieri in forma di ricetta fra Modica e il mondo (by Peppe Barone e Sara Ongaro).
Man-chò
“angels food”, “stars sweat”, “honey dew”
(The mark Man-chò is the product of the meeting between a manna producer of the group Slow Food (www.slowfood.it) in Pollina(in the Madonie area) (Giulio Gerardi) and some producers of sweets from Modica: it is the attempt at connecting two typical Sicilian products in order to give them both energy and visibility.
The following products are made: Modica manna chocolate bar, manna cakes.
