HUNI KUIN RESISTENCE MASK
The biggest people in the state of Acre are going through a very troubled time with of Covid-19.With the pandemic, access to all villages is closed, and there are no visitors passing through indigenous lands.Its main sources of income were directly affected, since all cultural festivals, groups from visitors national and international journeys and cultural projects were interrupted. The outflow of Huni Kuin handcrafts has dropped dramatically. Today, with little support, indigenous suffer from the entry of livestock, agribusiness, land grabbing, logging and mining and with it the contamination of the people. We are compromised to solve exchange of information reguarding covid plus supportuning Huni Kuin woman Art and income.Today the project support 10 families but we know we could reach more families, and after a research we can replicate in other villages if the Woman wish to be part of.
The situation of COVID-19, access to all villages was closed, as it is essential that there are no visitors passing through indigenous lands. Its main sources of income were directly affected, since all cultural festivals, travel groups, national and international journeys and cultural projects were interrupted. The outflow of Huni Kuin handicrafts has dropped dramatically.The solution arises from the pandemic problem.If everyone needs masks to protect themselves why not make Huni Kuin activist masks? Generating visibility to the Huni Kuin culture and generating income for families.Through the weaving ancient techinic mothers teach their daughters about culture, the grafisms, plants to tiedie, cotton, mud and other feminin learning from HK culture.Whoever buys the mask in addition to support with income for families also support by giving visibility to the indigenous culture and causes.Today we work with 10 families of the Huni Kuin people, but the intention is to expand to more families and later to other ethnic groups. In acre state there is 700k people & 14k Huni Kuin. FOr now we are working with jordão & tarauaca cities (around 5k Huni Kuin considering both region).
Throught the production & sales of art from the huni kuin woman. This ancient textile produced its a new acessory for modern life.
Its a regular mask made by weaving & with HK sacred geopmetric patters.
Protect the HK people from covid19 & share this protection with the non indigenous people. Rise awarness for theis cause and existence.
We are supporting Huni Kuin Woman to pass their ancient wisdow & knowledge throught the generations to come considering the Huni Kuin way of education
This project main objective its to serve the huni kuin Woman and their families by providing an income from their weaving work.
For now we are working with 10 families, but as the project evolves, we will increase the number of families that can be ioncluded. We are working with creative economy by supporting the amazon guardians with adicional income.Valuing the Huni Kuin art and supporting the sales flow with marketing and logistics.
The needs in this pandemic period are to generate income for the woman artisans.
- Enable small and new businesses, especially in untapped communities, to prosper and create good jobs through access to capital, networks, and technology
Development of Huni Kuin people sales & art.
Target population to buy people who admire indigenous culture both in Brazil and around the world.
From the contact with the Huni Kuin women they presented what they were producing and together we had the idea of selling.
The basic solution is immediate. As we sell more masks we buy more units
- Prototype: A venture or organization building and testing its product, service, or business model
- A new application of an existing technology
Because we work directly to support this goal ancient wisdow from native people alive by pass trought the generations with HK educational process of teaching.
The unique solution its combine the essential of their art expressed in products, support woman and families direcly and support the amazon rainforest to be alive and its guardian with health and their lives.
This is a social environment impact business that include only ancestral wisdom of weaving an dyeing cotton aling with new economy moviments of inclusion.
By conecting costumers from social midia and website and reducing this distance between Huni Kuin people and non-indigenous.
Is not so new and for us non indigenous its a comum use, but for this people its a start of something new.
- Ancestral Technology & Practices
- Audiovisual Media
- Internet of Things
The inovation in this project consist to be align with new economy movements as we face now.
So we belive from this first pilot that its in course that by selling its products and developing a better logistic together,we could reach many people that are interested in support indigenous community by using theis produts.
We just see in a simple way of buying and selling. There is no inovation on that, the inovation its to work direct with the woman providing space and combining our talents to work together.
- Women & Girls
- Pregnant Women
- Rural
- Peri-Urban
- Low-Income
- Minorities & Previously Excluded Populations
- 4. Quality Education
- 8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
- 10. Reduced Inequalities
- 12. Responsible Consumption and Production
- 13. Climate Action
- Brazil
- Brazil
- Estonia
- France
- Germany
- Ireland
- Portugal
- Spain
- United Kingdom
- United States
We are working with 10 woman directly, we plan to integrate between 50-100 in one year.
In 5 years we plan that all Huni Kuin woman are selling their art, around 6k woman.
Timing for the production between forest timing and urban timing.
Quality issues reguarding the product.
We face a very expensive logistic issue with the Huni Kuin woman, since many of them live far away from post offices in small villages inside of amazon forerst. For now we are working more with those that are temporaly living in htis small amazon cities.
Recognize the real value from handcraftwork.
Tecnologic/internet barrier, in this small cities they can access internet and phone connection, but in a very poor conditions, but its working.Nowadays not all villages have internet solution support from abroad (goverment, institutions or their own projects), and this would be an amazing tool for them to go less out of the villages, and could do work and communication from indigenous lands.
City Timing align with Forest timing -> The project has already started and we work with the time barrier in the following ways: the first is informing buyers that the production time is all manual.
As a handcraft work there are some that do not come out perfect. For the quality work of these pieces we are sending models to the artisans and when it arrives to people in Rio de Janeiro we sort the material and send them through photos the sample pieces and the defective pieces pointing out what needs to be improved. We have a margin for ordering more parts so that the final public does not receive parts with low quality.
The logistics of sending the middle of the Amazon rainforest to Rio de Janeiro are expensive and time consuming, as they live far from the post office. So we are closing orders with a scale of 200 pieces. They make 200 pieces, we pay, they ship and we order 200 more. This way we can improve the time and logistics barriers.
Recognize the value of handcraft art. Have a label telling a little about the artist, where she lives and a little about the history the sacred geometric patters.
- Nonprofit
We have a large groups that works for 15 years with the Huni Kuin people in Rio, and two of these members are working directly with the woman.
Our organization its a church with Txaná Bane Huni Kuin as our president.
full-time staff 15 people
part-time staff 55 people
To work with indigenous community its not everyone that is allowed or that know how the work its to be done.
It takes time to have their trust beacuse they ve been humiliated and bad treated bt non indigenous for many years.
Since we develop a 15 years work with them, we your direcly with the most important leadership from the Huni kuin people
Fephac, CPI, ASCARJ, yube inu instituto and huni kuin cooperative in jordão city.
Since its hard the internet acess and sometimes reading in portuguese,weve been supporting by writing projects, executing them in many areas (culural projects, turism, organizing ceremonies etc..)
We use the metodology called FLUXONOMIA 4D develloped by Lala denzelin in Brazil.
Romina Lindemann its a social impact entreprenour and has experience with this model.
The main customers are people who admire the Huni Kuin culture around the world. These indigenous people have a large audience already formed by the whole world. We are focusing on Covid-19 masks as it is a product that everyone needs right now, but we can expand to other indigenous arts.
- Individual consumers or stakeholders (B2C)
We are sending these project to a lot of calling for projects, and for now our main source its the direct sales in our network.
We are in prototype period, so we are ok to pass throught this first sales to buy more in a second moment and has this organic growth.
Entrepreneur supportSells mask and HK art.direct sales /website (soon)we buy from the artisan in the price that is fair and also sell for a fair priceOur key sucess factor its the art & ancestral valuing + support woman and indiegnous families in the amazon.