Abstract
This project attempts to take an Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) approach when creating a women’s recycled-art collective. The ABCD approach is discussed in depth by John Kretzmann and John McKnight in the book Building Communities from the Inside Out (1993). The project partnered with a local non-profit institution to help the local community build new collaborative relationships and mobilize local assets and capacities that were previously overlooked or under-utilized. The coordinator desired to facilitate the creation of an asset-based framework that enabled the formation of mutually beneficial relationships between members of the collective and members of the local community, local businesses, tourists, and the Talamanca Association of Ecotourism and Conservation (ATEC). The desired outcome of this project was to empower the members of the collective with the skills necessary to manage the newly formed enterprise with decreasing intervention from the local institution that supported its creation.