Cotton Spinning Plant, Nicaragua

The story of the Nueva Vida Women's Sewing Cooperative is a remarkable one. The cooperative is owned an operated by a small group of women who were displaced in 1998 when Hurricane Mitch swept through Central America. They had no homes, no livelihoods, and no savings, but they had a dream of starting a women's sewing cooperative that would provide them stable and dignified employment. Over the next three years, they built a future for themselves--literally. By 2001 they had built a sewing plant with their own hands, and began making high-quality tee shirts for socially conscious consumers.

Last year, the cooperative became the world's first worker-owned export processing zone. Its 47 worker-owners make all the decisions about how they will run their business, from policy on bathroom breaks (members take them as needed), overtime work (only when members reach a consensus), cooperative membership (new workers must work for three months before they become eligible and be approved by current members) and distribution of income (fair) !

The cooperative registered $300,000 in sales in 2004, but it often struggled to find cotton suppliers that could meet its growing demand, especially for organic cotton. To remedy this supply chain problem, Nueva Vida has applied for a loan to finance the construction of a cotton spinning facility on the premises of its current sewing plant.

In 2005, CRS made a Fair Trade Fund Development Grant to the women of Nueva Vida to finance a study to identify what kind of plant would be most feasible and most appropriate for their needs--a small but critical step in Nueva Vida's effort to bring more of its supply chain into its worker-owned cooperative model.

Click hereto learn more about the Nueva Vida Women's Sewing Cooperative and its spinning plant project.

Learn more about CRS programs in Nicaragua.