San Juan de Oriente

San Juan de Oriente is a small town in the Pueblos Blancos region of Masaya, adjacent to Catarina. San Juan is the center of Nicaraguan ceramic artisanship, with an enormous proportion of the town's residents engaged in the craft. Pottery from San Juan is diverse, and internationally renowned, but despite the level of craft, the economic situation in the community remains extremely difficult. To support strategies to address this situation, ATRAVES helped to found UNIARTE, a cooperative of San Juan artisans. ATRAVES volunteers have worked with the cooperative, and the local primary school.