Women coming together to support each other can make all the difference.

In many Mayan communities of Guatemala, women don’t just wear traditional clothing—they weave it themselves. From an early age, girls learn to use the backstrap loom, creating huipiles (blouses), cortes (skirts), and fajas (belts) filled with symbols of mountains, corn, birds, and stars. Each design carries a story: of their village, their ancestors, and their relationship with the earth and the sacred.

Weaving their own clothes is both daily work and quiet resistance—a way to preserve language, identity, and memory in every thread. When a woman puts on her handwoven huipil, she is literally clothing herself in the wisdom, creativity, and dignity of her people.