With the help of a global development organization called Counterpart International, some of the one million Guatemalan women whose livelihood is based on making handcrafts are getting a better deal. Some of their handcrafts ended up recently at the International Gift Fair in New York City. This video struck a chord with me. When I worked for The Miami Herald in the 1990s, I once went up to the devastated Ixil Triangle of Guatemala to do a story on women contracted by a major U.S. designer (I can't remember which one now) to knit sweaters that would be sold on Fifth Avenue. The Ixil Triangle was ground zero in the Guatemalan army's scorched earth campaign against leftist rebels in the early 1980s.

The famine that is reportedly afflicting the Tarahumara Indians in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Chihuahua state has really gotten the attention of federal officials.

My inbox is chock full of press releases from government ministries and the Mexican marines about how much aid is now flowing into Tarahumara hamlets. These two photos were just sent out by the Marines PR office. It says two helicopters delivered 11 tons of relief supplies yesterday and today. The supplies were among 90 tons that have been collected at Marines HQ since news of the famine first broke about two weeks ago.

If the Secretariat of Social Development is working as hard in delivering supplies to the Tarahumara as its PR department is working at touting the aid, then everything will turn out tip-tip. The latest release says the secretariat has mobilized 300 people, 50 vehicles and two helicopters to deliver aid to 107 hamlets. 

Far as I can tell, social media has driven this huge response to a crisis, partly triggered by false reports of mass suicides among the Tarahumara. Postings on the internet and Twitter led to calls for citizens to deliver relief supplies to the main squares of Mexico City and Monterrey. In an election year, officials had to step up to the plate.