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Fund Ko'ox Boon: A Maya Community Movement

Send rural Mayan artists & dreamers to Camp Ko'ox, a creativity camp FREE for underserved children!

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Fund Ko'ox Boon: A Maya Community Movement

Fund Ko'ox Boon: A Maya Community Movement

Fund Ko'ox Boon: A Maya Community Movement

Fund Ko'ox Boon: A Maya Community Movement

Fund Ko'ox Boon: A Maya Community Movement

Send rural Mayan artists & dreamers to Camp Ko'ox, a creativity camp FREE for underserved children!

Send rural Mayan artists & dreamers to Camp Ko'ox, a creativity camp FREE for underserved children!

Send rural Mayan artists & dreamers to Camp Ko'ox, a creativity camp FREE for underserved children!

Send rural Mayan artists & dreamers to Camp Ko'ox, a creativity camp FREE for underserved children!

Ko'ox Boon
Ko'ox Boon
Ko'ox Boon
Ko'ox Boon
1 Campaign |
Yaxhachen, Yucatán, Mexico
$10,560 USD by 131 backers
$10,200 USD by 128 backers on May 15, 2015

Who we are

We believe in the power of creativity to promote social equality

Ko'ox Boon is a non-profit organization with a mission to empower children and adults from underserved Maya communities by providing the tools for making public art & cultivating economic markets for the fair trade of handmade artisan goods.


About this campaign

Your support will make possible three interrelated projects


  • Casa Yaxha: We will revitalize an existing but abandoned community building: restoring electricity, creating additional multipurpose space, adding a new bathroom, and establishing a community garden.
  • Camp Ko’ox: Additionally, this campaign will provide FREE and OPEN enrollment for Camp Ko’ox, a 6-week Summer Art Camp for all children in Yaxhachen and the neighboring pueblo, Xkobenhaltun. The camp will also include the installation of 5 full-scale murals designed and painted by local artists assisted by the Ko’ox kids.
  • Yaxha: The goal of project Yaxha is to facilitate an artisan economy in Yaxhachen, creating opportunities for local embroiderers to support their families financially through their craftsmanship.  100% of the proceeds are returned to the artisans.


What happens if we don't reach our goal?

You don't want to make the first sad face, now do you?


Why Casa Yaxha is the ULTIMATE goal

A community center owned by the community 


  • It already exists! #lemonade
  • In January of this year, Ko'ox Boon worked with community members to begin renovations of the abandoned “Comisaria Ejidal," which was used for many years as the office of the “ejido,” a collective of community land owners charged with the task of managing the town and the land. 
  • With hard work from local volunteers, the building is clean and coated with fresh paint.  
  • Funding will help us to add a bathroom, new windows, and a lean-to structure off of the back, in order to create an additional covered space for art classes. 
  • The community center will employ local laborers and volunteers to paint, build wood tables, and begin construction for a community garden.
  • Casa Yaxha will be a bodega of resources for artisans. We will buy thread and fabric in bulk, and sell them at cost to local artisans. 


How we impact

one bagillion smiles and counting

  • We are a 100% volunteer-based team (partly based in Jackson, Mississippi, Merida & Yaxhachen, Yucatán) of artists, anthropologists, writers, photographers, health students, and community members, which means that we have a diverse skillset and are great collaborators. But more importantly: no wasted dough (aka your money is going straight to giving theses cuties ^ creative opportunities). 
  • Large-scale creative projects, like mural making and collaboration with the embroidery collective promote community fellowship, cultivate economic development, and explore local heritage and folklore. 
  • In the summer of 2014, 78 kids graduated from Camp Ko'ox. This year, we hope to increase the number of kids involved in the camp by 25%.
  • Kids are tasked with projects that cause them to think dimensionally about who they are, how they see the world, and how they want to present their ideas to YOU, through our social media and blog. 
  • We develop curriculum based on our values, rather than an end goal. We value creativity, joy, details, mutual respect, self-determination & FUN, all in the pursuit of social equality. 


Creating leaders

Meet Enrique Xul Us, one of the young artists of Yaxhachen, as he takes you on a bike ride to see something beautiful in his community. 


We put cameras into the hands of aspiring filmmakers, thanks to donated cameras and monetary donations, and we plan to do it big time this summer at Camp Ko'ox. Help us to give artists the opportunities to write their own stories. 


Developing Markets

One of the greatest obstacles that the people of Yaxhachen face is economic opportunity. 

"Yaxha" answers this problem by bringing the products of the artisans to YOU. Yaxhachen boasts a long-standing tradition of making white dresses embroidered with beautiful floral patterns, called huipiles. These huipiles echo the cultural heritage and specific history of the Yucatec Maya people. Under the leadership of Brandon Guichard, Ko'ox Boon has established an economic development project, which helps a large local co-op of embroiderers to design an all-new clothing line. The goal of the projects is to lend these female (and one male) artisans the support that they need to use their skills, thereby contributing to family economies and spreading awareness of Maya culture. 

Why give?

Besides the feel-good of giving to a good cause, get Ko'ox good style!


Our perks are a way for you to connect directly with the artisans. All of our perks are hand-made, unique products that emphasize our mission. Show the world that you believe in the power of art!


How did Ko'ox Boon come about?

meet our founders

While working as an archaeologist in the jungle of Yucatan, Mandi Strickland (left) became friends with her local employees (granted, she could become friends with a brick wall). After a couple of summers, Mandi took her good friend Allie Jordan (right) to visit her friends in the small pueblo of Yaxhachen (2013). Like Mandi always did, Allie had a complex emotional experience: she had to reconcile the reality of poverty with the beauty of a chorus of young, high-pitched voices offering her mangos and beseeching her to play. Meeting a group of people like this who are so open and kind despite scarce resources and language barriers led us to wonder, what can we do with our talents and resources to give back to this community?

A few months later, Mandi had the idea to buy paint for a community mural. She called Allie and Phillip Boyett. In the summer of 2014, Allie, Mandi & Phillip not only achieved their original goal of painting a mural, but also painted a second mural, repaired broken playground equipment, restored the public outdoor theater, and began a daily kids’ art camp involving a consistent 78 children for six weeks (BOOM) with the help of OVER 50 ADULT VOLUNTEERS on a budget of $3,000 (which they raised by selling limited-edition, wood block carved prints from Hound Dog Press in Louisville, Kentucky).  


Join the movement!

And we keep growing & growing & growing & growing

Our team is amazing--full of energy and ideas. Learn how to join us here


What else can you do?

Even if you can't give monetary donations, doesn't mean you can't help.

Donate your used camera! Ko'ox Boon Director of Creative Education, Sara Sacks, works with the local high school (it's only two years old!) to provide extracurriculars. She has created a film club along with a women's soccer team (the first every women's sport team!). Put cameras in the hands of these students (it's not like you use your digital camera anymore anyway!). 


Sustainability

how to keep it going

  • Buzzword: sustainability. Everyone's talking about it these days. Not just, how do we make social change, but how do we make it sustainable? 
  • Casa Yaxha is our answer to the sustainability question. By creating a place to attach the meaning of our flourishing programs, we make something permanent, something that's always there with a local leader in control. 
  • Community partners. From the start, we have partnered with passionate community members to carry out our ideas. By vesting the responsibility of Casa Yaxha in the hands of local employees, we give the power to the community. 

where is Yaxhachen again?

Yaxhachen is a pueblo (rural town) in southern Yucatan, Mexico with about 2,000 residents. If you look at the town on Google Maps (http://tinyurl.com/psvtodw) you'll notice that there's only one road in or out, and it's surrounded by milpas, small farm plots, and a deep green forest. On the ground, you'll see thatched-roof houses hung with hammocks, smell smoke from wood ovens heating hand-made tortillas, and hear people greeting each other in Mayan. In Yucatec Mayan, people don't ask how you are, they ask you, "How is your road?" (Bix a bel?). The normal response to that question, is ma'alob, which means "good" but sounds a lot like the word for bad in Spanish, malo. One resident described life in Yaxhachen saying, everything that's good (bueno) is ma'alob, and everything that's bad (malo) is ma'alob. In other words, "it's all good." 

However, life is hard for these people. Subsistence farming is unreliable because of the lack of irrigation, and residents of Yaxhachen struggle to find work because of the lack of jobs locally and low levels of formal education. Health problems like diabetes have become common in the town as residents consume more cheap snack foods, and living in close proximity to farm animals and inhaling smoke daily from wood fires also create health problems among members of the community. Ko’ox boon strives to address these issues by creating opportunities for residents to supplement their incomes through embroidery and by promoting healthy eating and handwashing during our creativity camp and art projects.


our theory

from an anthropological perspective

We believe in the power of our work in Yaxhachen to create real, sustainable social change. Clifford Geertz, the father of symbolic anthropology, suggested “humans are suspended in a web of meaning [that] they themselves have spun.” If you clear away the webs we have spun, what remains? Humans, moving from place to place and acting upon the world with their bodies. These webs of meaning and social relations form a complex network that is now certainly global and transnational, and it’s all too obvious that they are filled with spiders. But, it’s important to try to remember that humans are the crowd-sourced architects of this network, and our own actions spin these webs. When people break down social constructions like gender, age cohorts, or race, and start interacting across those lines, by talking, playing or working, they are spinning new webs that make us think differently about our material reality, which is the gateway to social change. We choose to do this through art. Because art transcends language and impacts the way that we see the world. 


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Choose your Perk

Hand-painted Dios Botik cards!

$10 USD
The niños & niñas of Ko'ox Boon are all very talented artists, and they want to thank you! Dios Botik cards will be hand-painted by KBkids ages 3-11 during Camp Ko'ox in June 2015.
Estimated Shipping
August 2015
22 out of 100 of claimed

Wood-carved Ko'ox Boon prints

$50 USD
Artists from Hound Dog Press (a boutique printing press from Louisville, Kentucky) hand carved wood block prints. The vibrant image features a paint can & Ko'ox Boon translated into ancient Mayan hieroglyphs. Limited edition, only 195 printed.
Estimated Shipping
August 2015
10 out of 50 of claimed

Send a kid to Camp Ko'ox!

$60 USD
Dreamer Package: For $60, you can send a child to camp for 6 weeks. At the beginning and end of camp, your Dreamer will write you a letter. You will receive these letters, a painting made by your Dreamer, & a photo journey of your Dreamer's success in Camp Ko'ox via mail at the end of Camp Ko'ox.
Estimated Shipping
August 2015
5 claimed

Yaxha, embroidered canvas bag

$100 USD
"Yaxha" is a product line developed by Ko'ox Boon team members to create markets for embroidery work done by talented women (and one male) artists in Yaxhachen. Each bag is unique, featuring an original design from the artist.
Estimated Shipping
August 2015
19 out of 30 of claimed

Original Artwork

$500 USD
Puuc Package: Receive all other perks, plus a piece of original artwork made in advanced art classes during Camp Ko'ox, led by instruction from Artist in Residence, Samantha Ledbetter.
Estimated Shipping
August 2015
2 out of 10 of claimed

Hand-embroidered tapestry

$1,000 USD
Jaguar Package: You will receive all other perks, PLUS a hand-embroidered, large scale tapestry made by the Yaxha embroiderers.
Estimated Shipping
August 2015
0 out of 10 of claimed

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