Aid to Artisans

Aid to Artisans, a nonprofit organization, offers practical assistance to artisan groups worldwide, working in partnerships to foster artistic traditions, cultural vitality, improved livelihoods and community well-being. Through collaboration in product development, business skills training and development of new markets, Aid to Artisans provides sustainable economic and social benefits for craftspeople in an environmentally sensitive and culturally respectful manner.

In its thirty years Aid to Artisans (ATA) has changed the lives of thousands of artisans through its "Market Link" program of product design, production and business skills. In developing countries, handcrafts continue to provide an important source of income, especially in rural areas and especially for women.

Aid to Artisans has worked with more than one hundred and forty artisans groups around the world helping them to create sustainable businesses. From basket weavers in Cambodia, to woodcarvers in Mozambique, to potters in Haiti, the work of their hands has meaning well beyond these businesses and their obvious skill and artistic sense. Handmade products represent their history, their landscape, their way of life. The effect on local economies of these artisan businesses enables them to provide livelihoods and social services to their communities that cannot be measured by profit alone.

Visit the Aid to Artisans Web site at: http://www.aidtoartisans.org/

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