About Us

The Q’ewar Project was founded in Andahuaylillas, a small village high in the Andes Mountains of Peru by Julio Herrera and Lucy Terrazas. Q’ewar began in their front room with four of the poorest women in the town, who were experiencing severe domestic violence. What began as a small protective group has grown to now include over one hundred women and their families. In addition to providing meaningful work in the communal workshop cleaning, carding, and spinning sheep wool and making alpaca yarn, Julio and Lucy also held Saturday morning meetings to bring confidence and a sense of freedom to the women. They also set up a community monetary fund that the women can use in a responsible and autonomous way. It is a social and economic initiative that has a positive impact on some of the poorest families in that region. Women of the Q’ewar initiative are empowered through this meaningful doll making work that demonstrates their ancestral knowledge and enables them to provide food, housing, health care and education to their families while working in a cooperative, safe, and socially restorative environment.

Read more about the Q’ewar Project here.

I am a woman and mother with a passion for helping others. I have started this business because I believe that entrepreneurship has the potential to make a change in some of our biggest current problems. Social entrepreneurship is a “from the ground up” effort. When people have suffered from a societal injustice, they feel compelled to take action and have a heightened sense of empathy. Ultimately this is what is required to make a definitive change.

I’ve been seeking balance in my life by volunteering with various international non-profits. My desire to help others began when I was very young, and I have never forgotten my mission of building a better world; it’s just taken me some time to figure out how to do it. My Alli-Rose Collective (named after my two sons, Allister and Ambrose) developed after having traveled numerous times to Peru with my mother Margret, who brought the very first Q’ewar dolls to the US. I have seen the tremendous life transformation that has occurred in these women’s lives. The women demonstrate their ancestral knowledge through traditional weaving and knitting. All materials are green, low impact, organic, and eco-friendly, in other words, something that you want your children to play with! I also admit that I have been searching for products that support mutual human understanding, that knits the threads that unite people. I hope that you enjoy learning about the various initiatives that produce the artisan products that I present you in this collective. I believe that when a business gives back to the community, then its work is truly meaningful. By making other people’s lives better, it receives more than any bank account can hold.

I hope that you will join me in making a change in the way that you shop.

How the dolls got to America

Bringing the dolls to the US was a labor of love. It began over twenty-one years ago when my mother turned seventy. My siblings and I bought her a plane ticket to Peru. She had, for the past decade, traveled all over the world, working in communities called Camphills. Her travels had taken her to Brazil and Africa, but she still had a strong desire to go to Peru. So, off she went and through a fortuitous meeting with Anthroposophists in Lima, she was introduced to Julio and Lucy. When she left Peru, her suitcase was filled with the first ever dolls made by the tiny fledgling Q’ewar cooperative. When she returned to Vermont, she began looking for ways to distribute them. Enter JoAnne Dennee, a Waldorf educator who had a life-long desire to work in South America and a deep heart connection to that ancient culture. JoAnne began to travel almost yearly to conduct teacher trainings with the mothers and consult with the project on various fronts. For years, she was the representative for Q’ewar. My mom and I teamed up and opened an eclectic thrift store called Lukana’s Dream to raise funds to purchase the dolls and donate them to other charities. We opened in 2005 and closed in 2020 just before the pandemic. During those years, we traveled to Peru with various friends and the desire to spread Julio and Lucy’s mission of respect for human dignity within the project as well as bring a beautiful product to the world’s attention.