Hurricane Mitch
In 1998, various central American countries – including Nicaragua – were devastated by hurricane Mitch. Many of our families had been living on the bank of Lake Xolotlan (Lake Managua), alongside many others without a lot of economic resources. When the hurricane hit, the lake flooded and we lost our houses and were relocated.
We then formed part of a new urbanization called “Nueva Vida” (New life) in Ciudad Sandino. Located 7 miles west on the outskirts of Managua, Ciudad Sandino has the densest population in the country: more then 3,000 people per KM live here.
A Women’s Cooperative
After Hurricane Mitch, an NGO called Centro pro Desarrollo en Centroamerica, Jubilee House Community (CDCA-JHC), began to investigate a way of fighting the 80% unemployment rate in Nueva Vida. The idea that emerged was to form a sewing cooperative for the women in the neighborhood.
In Nicaragua there are many Free Trade Zones, which employ mainly women. In many of these factories, clothes are made under unjust working conditions, the workers work many hours, and the majority are single mothers. We want to be able to provide what is necessary for our families.
In our cooperative, whi
ch is in the hands of the workers, we are the owners of our work and invest our labor so that the business functions well. Being worker-owners requires a true promise and commitment to provide other women in our community with better working conditions.
Made With Our Sweat
The original group of cooperative members each worked 640 hours in the construction of the building and organizing our project. For a period of more then 2 years, we each worked 20 hours every week without yielding any sala
ry to be able to pay the social fund of the cooperative. As single mothers, we had to work half a day mixing cement and diggi
ng holes in the morning, and in the afternoon we went out to work to earn some money and to help our families – many of us worked selling goods in the streets.
This phase was very difficult for us a
nd many of our families told us that we must be crazy to invest so much in a project that would never have results. But when we look at our successes, it fills us with pride in our work and hope for the future of our cooperative.
In February 2001, our small group of women officially organized itself as a cooperative, The Cooperative Maquiladora Mujeres de Nueva Vida Internacional RL. In May of that year we finished our building and received the first machines.
Learning To Sew
Many of us had never worked in a Free Trade Zone and did not have experience with industrial machines. We had a preparation program and practiced with our machines, making organic hair scrunchies for Maggie’s Organics in Michigan. By August we had learned 15 different operations that a shirt required and we made our first small order of organic shirts for Maggie’s!
In the following year the original group of members worked most of the time on small orders of organic shirts, paying ourselves $2 a day. Since we did not have much work making orders, we often met as a cooperative and practiced how to make clothes.
Fair Trade
The second goal was to obtain the funds to certify the Cooperative as the first Free Trade Zone in the world to be operated by its workers. Funds were obtained from the Interamerican Foundation and on July 1st, 2005 our cooperative begin to work as a Free Trade Zone, which allows us to compete globally with “sweatshops” while continuing to pay fair salaries under secure working conditions, where workers are in charge of the work place. This is why we call ourselves the “Fair Trade Zone.”
As members, we have had to make many sacrifices to maintain our Cooperative. However, we have continued working in the factory towards a goal of leaving the extreme poverty in which we live in Nueva Vida. We are working together to create sustainable jobs in the community so that we can support our families.
Future
For members of the Cooperative, our dream for the future is to increase our production levels to give full-time jobs to more families in our community. Currently we employ 49 heads of the family.
All of the people who work in our cooperative have the opportunity to become a member, as long as they have the same common interest in the success of the Cooperative.
