Chunga Treehouse

Chunga Treehouse is a nonprofit organization with a focus on fair trade practices, economic development, and cultural preservation by empowering indigenous artisans in underserved communities by connecting their work to a global market. Artisans in rural Panama are often forced to sell their work for little to nothing since there are very few outlets for their goods. Our mission is to cut out the middleman and compensate artisans the wages they deserve for their beautiful artwork, which is a key economic driver in underserved rural communities. Furthermore, we expect to empower artisans by providing educational programming centered around production, organization, and entrepreneurship. We hope to give artisans the tools they need to lead their cooperatives with financial independence and self sufficiency. Additionally, we hope to provide cultural workshops to promote the preservation of traditional practices. In the next year, we hope to develop relationships with multiple cooperatives around rural Panama and beyond starting with Cerro Naipe, a small Embera village in the Darien Province of Panama. We’ll work with Cerro Naipe’s artisan group and others around Panama as our pilot projects. We expect the first year of work to be primarily focused in Panama. After the first year, we hope to have established successful programs and projects. Within the first three years, we hope to be working in multiple countries with various artisan cooperatives around the world.