In the Toledo District, Belize, since 2014 the Hibiscus Mayan Arts and Craft Women Cooperative of the village of Santa Cruz. It’s a cooperative composed of small producers of mayan traditional arts and craft. While, at the begining with 10 members which produce arts and craft for the local market. Their expertise is the result of many years of making the arts focusing on three main products which are cuxtal, baskets, and Mayan blouses. Also the cooperative is incorporating more young members with the main objective of encouraging them to be self sustainable for improvement of better living.

Furthermore, the cooperative’s main market is in the tourism industry whereby they have customers from Punta Gorda, and Rio Blanco. Venturing in different markets creating synergies with other institutions has been a challenge however the experience obtained has made them improve in their marketing and production of the products.

During the formation and development of the cooperative, several support from other institutions have been of importance for their continuous focus and propeling capacity building and rural development. Moreover, non governmental organizations such as the Toledo Institute Development Environmental Project, and figures from the Department of Co-operative, Ministry of Agriculture, Belize Marketing Development Corporation have positively impacted in the development of co-operative.