Chile has a history of foreign domination and political interference. The impact on the growth of its economy has been severe, and unemployment is wide spread, both for this reason and as people are driven off the land by large-scale horticultural developments.

Comparte, a non profit marketing organisation, was set up in 1988 by a group of Christian business people to develop small businesses and workshops with the aim of increasing family earnings, providing jobs and alleviating unemployment.

Currently Comparte works with approximately 450 workshops, primarily rural groups. Many are family workshops, and many are informally organised: during Pinoche’s regime all co-operatives were disbanded.

Comparte offers support to these groups through product design, technical advice, credit, putting groups in touch with other non-government agencies who can help them, marketing, and increasingly through internet marketing.

Comparte has an active environmental policy: they avoid use of native woods that are under threat, and only dead cacti are used for rain sticks.

Watch a video on Youtube featuring Jorge Monares, a copper and brass artisan who has been working with Comparte for more than ten years.

About the products

Planters and Clay Products from Pomaire:

• At the end of the eighteenth century women were producing ceramic products in Pomaire while their husbands worked in the fields. The take over of land smallholdings by agricultural corporations has led to wide spread unemployment, and men have moved into the production of ceramics. Today 66% of crafts are produced by men in fifteen family workshops associated loosely with Comparte.
• Clay for the pots comes from a source fifteen kilometres away. Wheels used are mostly the treadle type. Firing is traditionally done in wood fired kilns, using the fast growing eucalyptus tree  as fuel. The process takes eight - ten hours and the smoky finish is achieved by adding wet straw. There is increasing pressure to move to gas fired kilns which save time, reduce the firing time to four hours and avoid pollution.

Rain Sticks

Rain sticks are made by a co-operative of eight families at La Serena, 400 kilometres north of Santiago. The raw material, dry cactus, is plentiful in the arid mountain region. Five families collect, cut and clean out the insides of the cactus. Three more families then work exclusively on the placing of the spines to make the sound of the rain stick. This involves hammering spines in from the outside and stopping one end of the tube with a plug of willow wood. Small pebbles are placed inside the stick, the size being carefully chosen to complement the thickness and dimensions of the stick. The top of the stick is then stopped with willow wood. The rain stick is next polished on the outside and ends, and painted with glue which seals and gives a shine to the wood, as well as securing the spines. Rain sticks can then be decorated with coloured wool, or painted.