Continuing Textile Traditions: WARP’s Artisan Support Grants
October 16, 2025
WARP’s annual Artisan Support Grants Program, was established in 2020 during the COVID pandemic to provide emergency support to artisans whose livelihoods vanished as the local tourism industry collapsed. Since then, the program has evolved to award $500-$1,000 grants to artisans seeking to build successful businesses inspired by handmade textile traditions. Thanks to the generous donations of WARP’s members, we have (to date) awarded over 80 grants to textile artisans in 25 countries.
Join us on October 16, 2025, to learn more about the program and its impact on the artisans WARP has supported. Diane Manning, Grants Committee Chair, will be joined by three recent grantees who will share with us their stories and how a WARP grant has impacted their businesses and their lives.
This program is free & open to all.
Presenters
Diane Manning has been a WARP member since 2017. She joined the Grants Committee in 2022 and has been the committee chair since 2023. She is also co-chair of the WARP Board. An avid traveler and textile collector, Diane is passionate about supporting the livelihood of artisans worldwide and helping to preserve the cultural heritage their craft embodies.
Monique de la Tour is a multifaceted artist and 2025 WARP Textile Artisan grantee. Originally from New Zealand, she currently resides on Saint Helena Island, SC. For the past eight years she has been working to transform her one acre of land into an historic textile farm where she teaches the history of indigo, sea island cotton, and native dye plants and shares stories of South Carolina’s pre-colonial Sea Islands and their textile/fiber history. Monique plans to use her 2025 grant funds to put the finishing touches on her farm, which will give her the opportunity to train local Gullah Geechee youth in ancient textile traditions, creating entrepreneurial opportunities for them locally.
Tulio Enrique Dávila Beteta has extensive experience working with Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon. He serves as President of the NGO Amazon Ecology and General Manager of Garza Viva S.A.C., where he promotes the strengthening of Amazonian crafts, forest conservation, and the creation of sustainable livelihoods in Loreto, which contains Peru’s largest portion of the Amazon rainforest. Tulio helped manage the project of our 2023 grantee, El Colibri Amazónico (the Amazon Hummingbird), a group of 13 artisans who live in the mestizo community of San Francisco on the Marañon River in the northern Peruvian Amazon. The group makes woven ornaments (especially birds) using the leaves of the chambira palm tree, which they sell to local tourists, Amazon Ecology (for sale in the US) and other wholesale buyers. They used their WARP grant to purchase, plant, and nurture 500 chambira seedlings on their own land, which over time will provide a sustainable source of raw material for the increasing number of orders they receive each year and substantially improve the community’s economic livelihood.
Elmy Hernandez and Jacquelin Yoc will be presenting on behalf of Natün, a 2024 Grantee from Guatemala who used their award to fund capacity and technical skills workshops for students in basic and advanced level courses in backstrap weaving, embroidery, and sewing, as well as equip their workshop spaces with needed sewing machines, backstrap looms, and materials for students to learn with. Elmy Hernandez serves as Natün’s Economic Development Program Director. A proud Maya Tz’utujil woman, Elmy works with Indigenous rural communities in the Lake Atitlan region to create spaces where Indigenous women can realize their full potential. Jacquelin Yoc is Natün’s Director of Organizational Development and Impact. As a Maya Kaqchikel woman, Jacquelin is deeply committed to the belief that Indigenous women are catalysts for transformative change in their communities. She brings together traditional knowledge and professional expertise to guide effective, community-driven development.
