Development

Escama Studio has an almost symbiotic relationship with the cooperatives that make our bags, we depend upon each other and we benefit from helping each other out. Our partnership has been a success: over 25,000 bags have been made and the group of artists has grown from 12 to 70 women.

But purchase orders are just a start, we feel that Escama Studio is in an advantageous position to support the cooperatives in other ways. It's our objective to create a development program that will offer the two groups micro finance and educational programs. This is something that we're gearing up for right now and we are seeking out supporters in public and private sectors in Brazil, US and worldwide. If you have any recommendations or leads for development agencies or grants please let us know, we would be very appreciative.

To date, Escama Studio has made a modest start for our development efforts, earlier this year we gave a ‘rebate’ back to the cooperatives from our 2006 gross sales. Here's what they did with it:

Chica Rosa and Francisca bought furniture, file cabinets, computers, scanners, printers and they now have DSL connectivity.
Francisca built a kitchen in the workshop so that the ladies could cook and eat whenever they wanted.
She also bought a massive amount of pull-tabs so that they would have a stockpile of materials to work with.

The co-ops have also received strong support from the Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corp. and from SEBRAE - the Brazilian equivalent of the US Small Business Administration:

HSBC opened bank accounts for both cooperatives and 70 individual accounts the artists themselves.
SEBRAE is currently providing the artists with instruction in basic computer skills and the Internet.

Thank you for your continued support and please stay tuned for more info on our development efforts.