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Sikh Prayer Flags 100% for Charity The latest labor of love from a work project for disadvantaged women in Juarez, Mexico are garlands of vibrant, rainbow colored Sikh prayer flags featuring the Gurumukhi Ek Ong Kar symbol, the Khanda, and the Mul mantar. Lovingly handcrafted by a group of American artists and activists working with community leaders in a Mexican town ravaged by drug wars and violent crime, Guerilla Prayer Flags is a grassroots women’s cooperative giving hope to struggling families in Juarez, Mexico. Widows, mothers of special-needs children and their families are coming together to create one-of-a-kind prayer flags in a small workshop on an ordinary dilapidated dirt road in Anapra, a shanty town outside Juarez, Mexico, a community of sprawling pallet and cardboard houses, people struggling to meet basic needs, and rampant street, cartel and police violence. The project began when American aid workers teamed up with Anapra mothers attending a local community center, Proyecto Santo Nino (Project Holy Child), for special-needs children and their families. Sofia Aleman, a widow with 5 children and relentless community leader, began brainstorming ways that she could offer employment to the desperate mothers of these special children, who could not work outside of their homes in maquilas (factories), due to the constant care their children required. Ideas abounded but the insurmountable problem was the rampant extortion and violent acts on businesses in Juarez: it had become downright dangerous to operate a storefront. Their first idea was to open a cooperative kitchen where women could have a communal space to cook simple, wholesome food to sell on their own. But, week after week, hopes were dashed as reports flooded the news and neighbors recounted horror stories of arbitrary extortion demands, acts of retribution, and heinous crimes committed against anything resembling a business. Conditions in Anapra went from bad, to worse, to unimaginable. At one point, the local elementary school was shut down because the police who had been called in to protect the children and teachers against the extortionists turned and began making violent demands against the school administrators and threatening to hold children hostage until their parents paid for their “protection”. Around this time, a humble burrito vendor who had sold from his stand outside of the school for decades was brutally shot in front of schoolchildren for refusing to meet an impossible extortion demand. The last refuge from daily violence for Anapra’s young children was shut down for six months. The faithful people of Anapra had to draw upon every last reserve of hope in their beings. Sofia remained a spiritual lighthouse in the community, devoting herself to helping every person that came to her and desperately trying to convince people to have hope. Sofia reflects that all she ever wanted was for her people to have hope.
Guerrilla Prayer Flag's mission statement practically wrote itself: to provide work to deserving women, creating a sustainable, meaningful, and impeccable product that spoke to people’s hearts, and, since it wasn’t safe to operate a storefront, to take advantage of any and all opportunities to sell the flags —Guerilla style. Since 2013, Guerilla Prayer Flags have sold in venues across the Southwest, from health food co-ops, to specialty and gift shops, art cooperatives and worldwide through their sales on www.etsy.com. 5 hardworking women devoted to the mission of inspiring hope through impeccable and one-of-kind artistry continue to support their families through this project. If you, or someone you know, are interested in viewing and/or purchasing the 20 available prayer flag designs, please visit their online shop. For more information contact Siba at (915) 490-0915. Many blessings and thanks, Rosario & Siba Escobedo |
