Nayé

Nayé is a handmade beauty product enterprise founded in 2015 by five indigenous Zapotec women from the community of San Miguel Suchixtepec. It was created from their desire to participate as community promoters, in the group "Yu Naban" Tierra Viva. Nayé conducts and promotes environmental conservation of resources in the upper part of the Copalita River Basin.

From the process experienced in "Yu Naban", they decided to give continuity to the management, transformation and efficient use of medicinal plants through Nayé. Over the past five years, their experience as a Community Conservation Enterprise (CCE) has led to the production of three different types of balms: arnica, aloe and eucalyptus. It also led them to refine the production of two kinds of handmade soaps: oat-honey and coffee. Its goal is to revive the ancient traditional medical knowledge of the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Sur of Oaxaca.

Today, they aim to improve their products through physicochemical and biological testing. They seek to ascertain whether they are suitable for human use as herbal medicines. The women founders want to improve the quality of their products, develop marketing strategies and generate a higher income for a better quality of life for themselves and their families.

 

More than anything we would like to spread the traditional knowledge and make the products known so that people use them for their own benefit (...) We want to excel and look for sale points to make our products available to other places. This way, people can learn more about them and find a solution to their problems. To prevent them from using medicine made of chemicals, we want to try to rescue traditional medicine while increasing our income."