Yanamilla Prison Project

Today can best be described as wet. It poured rain all day and, since the prison is open in most areas, it was a soggy day for all. Still, rain or shine we have the classes and today was no different, although there was more huddling as we all tried to keep dry.

Before the class started, I checked in on the manta order and the list of women who will be participating in the order. It was good to see many familiar names (we give preference to women who are in the program) as well as new names. The list is still open for participants, with lots of inquiries, and I imagine by Thursday we have a full list of women who will be working on the order. I also walked by a few women who are embroidering manta for our bags, which is wonderful to see the distribution of work in action!

Also, several of the women showed me they manta they are embroidering. I always laugh when they do this, they want me to review their work, but of course all the manta looks so beautiful! It helps that the women have known me for so long that there is a personal motivation to do well. The embroidery is incredible and the women’s color combos just keep getting better and better. I fell in love with a brilliant orange, red, yellow, blue bird. I cannot wait to open the boxes when they arrive!

Written in Quechua, this translates to “In my heart there is peace and love. I love you.” For the women it means peaces and love are central to all!

In the class the women nearly finished their 15 products. It was fun for everyone to see them come together with the assembly. At this point, all the groups have worked out each other’s roles so the assembly was seamless and consistent. We also worked on pricing as each group received a list of costs associated with their product. Then we worked out how much time each took to make, followed by the hourly wage each person wanted to be paid. In the end, the women agreed on the price that they would sell their products for.

One group agreed on a price and later came up to ask if they could raise it. The women realized that for all the work involved it was just too low. I was really proud of them for coming to this conclusion on their own and speaking up. Part of owning a business is critically thinking about these kinds of decisions and making changes where needed to improve the profitability of the business. Having the ability to speak up and notice when something isn’t work is an important skill!

Thursday will be our last day because the women have a big dance party on Friday for Carnaval. The remaining women will finish on Thursday and their product cards will be revealed (I’m printing them tomorrow). The final step will see the finished product in its packaging and giving out payments for their work.

Translation above: To be big is the greatest desire of every person, to have an incomparable love and to always strive and grow to be the great man and woman that they carry within them. To be big is to always have a big heart.

Today’s metal stamping class focused on packaging and helping the women come up with ideas for displaying their products. We began by looking at a few packing examples and then moved on to the design portion of the day. I printed a mini-font list that I gave each group, explaining that they would have to pick out the fonts that they wanted, as well as draw out (with measurements) a card to accompany their products. This card will include the brief story they wrote on Friday to explain the meaning behind their product. As expected, the design process took quite a bit of time, as the groups mulled over the size, shape, and layout of their cards.

Translation: We hope that in each of our hearts are peace and love, despite whatever hardships we may find.

After the women finished designing their cards, they moved onto to producing their 15 identical pieces. It was really fun to watch the women work together and figure out what every person’s role would be. All the groups designated one women to stamp, another to measure, and another to prepare the stamps so they would be lined up and facing the right direction. I was really impressed by how seamlessly the women worked together in producing their products!

Translation: Rikchari means to “awaken” and is a word full of life and hope, to encourage you to continue to live each day with courage, and to never give up until the last breath of our lives. This product is handmade by women convicts Ayacucho Peru, who live every day with the hope of seeing a new dawn with joy. By buying this product we feel proud of your choice and keep fighting to see a new dawn.

Overall, the women got very far on stamping their 15 pieces and tomorrow most will have time to begin the assembly of their pieces. After the class today I spent some time creating a digital replica of the card designs made by the women (the photos you are seeing in this post). My hope is to have a sample of each printed on Wednesday so the women can see what their entire product, from design to packaging, will look like on Thursday, which will be our last day together.

In other news, I pinched my finger in the big metal door at the prison and it looks pretty terrible (it looks a lot worst than it hurts). The women were very concerned about me

and every time I went to pick at or touch it they shooed my hands away in irritation, telling me to leave it alone. I have to say, some days it feels good to be cared for, and today was one of those day!

Today’s class focused on the women designing and developing their own products within their groups. We began by talking about how to choose a word or phrase that has a meaning that is both personal yet also speaks to a customer. The women were asked to consider the following questions when deciding on their word or phrase: What does this word/phrase mean to you? What is the history of the world or phrase? Who is your client? What does this word or phrase mean to them?

Next the women were asked to write a brief paragraph about their phrase, combining the information from the questions above. This entire process took an hour, as the women spent a lot of time choosing a phrase that would have meaning for both them and their customer.

After the women settled on their phrase, the women chose their metal blanks and designed their product on paper. This included deciding what type of product they would sell (pendent, earrings, bracelet), the placement of the word on the blank, and additional decoration they would include, such as bead, wire, chain, etc. Next they made me a shopping list of the materials they would need to make 15 of the same product. This step was very important because many of them began by just saying “chain” and “clasps” instead of measuring and breaking down the exact number of what they would need.

The last step was to make a prototype of their product to use as a guide for the 15 pieces they will be producing. This gave them the chance to experiment with their original design and tweak it if needed. One group changed their design completely and another decided to stamp their phrase in Quechua rather than Spanish.

Finally, the women presented their products to the class and read their answers to the questions. I hadn’t seen any of the answers at this point (only the phrases), and I was really impressed with the depth and thoughtfulness the women put into their products! In fact, all of the women were impressed with what the others did and at the end everyone applauded and hugged. It was an incredibly sweet moment to see how each group came up with something different, yet each phrase was soaked in meaning for all of us.

Here is an example from one group:

Rikchari

Rikchari is Quechua for “awaken” and it is a word full of life and hope. It encourages us to continue to live each day with courage and to never give up until the last breath of our lives.

If you are weeping, don’t worry. So am I.

One of my great disappointments of this trip is seeing a woman who should have left last November still in the prison. Last summer when I talked to her she was all chatter about being released and getting her paperwork in order. She was planning to move back to the jungle to live with her father and work in his shop. She was hopeful and excited. And she’s still here.

Another woman was supposed to be released last January, then in the summer she told me November. I found out yesterday that she was released a week ago, meaning her release was delayed by over a year.

Yet another woman still hasn’t received her sentence. Every time I come she tells me that she should be released in a few months, since her lawyer think her sentence will be less than her time served, which is going on four years.

And every trip there are more like this. When the women talk about their release, there is a mixture of excitement, anxiety, fear, and hope in their voices. They all know their date- June of this year, April of another, but what happens when those dates come and pass and the women are still in prison? What happens to those emotions? Do they intensify? Are they replaced with frustration? Waiting?

When I ask the women about their postponed release date the answer is usually, “I don’t know” or “there is a delay with my papers”. If I press on about the delay, the answer is a shrug. It is becoming clear to me that there is little accountability in the the justice system and those handling the women’s papers. I’m not sure if it is because the people aren’t being held accountable, if there simply is no system of accountability, or if these women aren’t important enough to care about it.

What I am sure of is that it is an injustice to keep the women in the prison a day longer than they are sentenced, especially given the severity of the sentencing laws for non-violent crimes. What we as an organization can do about this is still unclear to me, but I am grateful that we are here to give the women work and classes so that they at least have something to look forward to while they wait.