Can you believe it?

Can you believe it? We are already in the end of March! Between the disbursement of loans, individual meetings, business education sessions, vocational training, donors visits, board field visits, and staff meetings in the five regions (Mazatenango, Suchitipequez, Quiche, Sacatepequez, and Chimaltenango) we have our hands full, so time really flies.

I will describe for you in the following paragraph our experience with the fourth component of our program: Vocational Training. If you remember, we have four components in the Namaste Business Development with Microcredit Program: the loan, a personal business mentor, business education, and vocational training.

On February 17th we held the Marketing Training in Mazatenango which is located in the western part of Guatemala, northwest of the capital.

We woke up at 3:00am in order to start driving 4:00am because James, Elvira and I needed to be in Belen at 8:30am. Belen, one of the rural areas on the coast of Guatemala, was the site of our first vocational training in Marketing in the Mazatenango region. A beautiful dawn was breaking as we left from Antigua. We met with 23 women on Monday and Tuesday and we discussed the 4 P’s of Marketing (Product, Price, Promotion, Place). They discussed the positive and negative attributes of their businesses. Well, dear reader, I have to confess it is not that easy to teach all of these concepts to our clients. Sometimes our clients tell us, “I do not need to promote my business because all my neighbors know about my business” or “I do not need to do promotion, there is no need and I can’t afford it” or “My business is not big enough to warrant promotion”. This is pretty much the idea that many our clients had we started the Marketing Training. After the 4 hour training, they confessed, “Well, I might need to promote and advertise “a little bit” so I can gain new clients” and “I probably can use this nice flyer to give people, so they will know about my business.” We are happy that our clients have realized that they may need to promote her product through flyers, customer service, keeping her business clean and tiny, and other good entrepreneurial practice, so she can gain new clients and raise her business.

On February 6th and March 18th, we held the Design and Colors Training and during these two days, we trained 17 women. This training was held in Tecpan.

It is a real adventure driving on a terrible road full of dust toward to our poor rural communities in our five regions, but seeing the beautiful landscape that Guatemala has; it really makes you forget that you are full of dust and struggling to drive on a bad road.

Well, that’s how we started the Tecpan training on March 18th - driving toward the Pachorotol community. We arrived in the meeting place, but no one else was there yet. The women were late to the training because they were carrying the water from the only water faucet in the entire community. I wondered how heavy that big container was that they were carrying on the top of their head. I was not brave enough to find out; I just observed them. The woman that you see in the picture below was the president of one of the Namaste groups that was participating in the training.

Finally, after all women finished carrying their water to their homes, we started around 9:30am, even though the training was supposed to start at 8:00am. 11 women were ready to learn and I know they really did not know exactly what they were to learn; but they were there eager to learn something new. After the welcome and presentation by each woman, the trainer asked them to draw some things they saw on the table. It was funny how they started giggling and chatting with each other when they were asked to draw a box with a glass and scarf that was on the table. Of course, they all ended up with a different interpretation of these things, which was the point of the exercise. We, as human beings see the same things, but each one of us has a peculiar and distinct point view of things. They all laughed about the different and funny drawings. After few more exercises, it was time to mix color, yes! Our clients have never had the chance to mix primary colors to create secondary colors. Even though they create beautiful and unique weavings, like guipiles that are very colorful (the guipil is the typical blouse that an indigenous woman wears), they have really never had the chance to learn how to formally mix color. The bottom line is that they are all natural artists and we are just providing new ideas for potential designs for their products. The women seemed very peaceful mixing the yellow with the blue and were amazed when they got green. They went on and on painting and enjoying that moment that they were supposed to discover when they were kids; but because of their destiny, they are discovering it only now. During this training, they created a list of potential new products that they can make which will generate income for themselves and for their families. In addition, they were making new designs for their current product which is the guipil. Finally, it was time to evaluate the training. I asked them to tell me one thing that they liked and did not like. They really could not tell me one negative thing. They said that they liked to paint and learn new designs and in addition, to come up with potential ideas for new products. They were satisfied with their time in the training and they want another one. Then the 11 women agreed that they want to learn how to make a belt that is made with ribbons. This belt is very fashionable, so this new product can be sold quickly and it does not take too much time to create it. The group planned to have the ribbon belt training on June 2nd. So; my loyal reader, our great supporter and Namaste family, if you are in town and want to learn how to make a ribbon belt with our clients, you are more than welcome. And I will definitely keep posted with our progress when the time allows me to write you and thank you for your support and tell you that we are really making a difference. My next blog will tell you more in detail the ways in which we are making a difference with our business mentorship in this part of the world. Thank you for reading these blogs and for supporting Namaste!