First Training session on Entrepreneurship - 16.02.10

As planned, the first training session on entrepreneuship took place yesterday afternoon, 16thof February, in Unión Peru’s communal room. AVSI accompanied the teacher who was coming to Alto Perú for the first time and introduced him to the beneficiaries. At the beginning of the class each person was asked to talk briefly about their business, after which the whole class discussed with the teacher the main concepts of entrepreuneuship i.e. What are the main characteristics of an entrepreneur? The class ended with a very interesting activity that aimed at stimulating the participants’ creativity to find new business ideas.
As mentioned before, a few of our beneficiaries told us that they will not be able to make it to the classes as they were at work. They explained that attending the course twice a week would be too difficult for them to arrange but that they would try their best to participate once a week. Due to this lack of availability, only two women from the ASOL Sagrado Corazón de Jesús and four members of Unidos para el Desarrollo attended the meeting. In addition four other people from Unión Perú who are not part of the Microfinance programme but have a small business in the area participated. Consequently, the teacher together with the participants decided to schedule classes only once a week on Tuesdays. SOLAC’s loan officers will have a meeting with their respective ASOLs on Friday to discuss this new alternative with the groups and ensure that all beneficiaries will get the opportunity to participate in the course.

Second repayment meetings - 11.02.10

The second repayment meetings were held last night at both communities. Again repayment went smoothly and the women were happy to attend and chat. We informed them about the course they will be starting on Tuesday which will take place for the members of both groups together. The majority seemed interested in this, although some people have already informed us that they will not be able to attend as they will be at work. This time, different to all others, we held the meeting with “Unidos Para el Desarrollo” outdoors. This turned out to be very nice, as it created a different, more casual relationship between all. Also, we have printed out photos that we have been taking at meetings and brought it to the meeting so that we were able to make a poster all together, which will be put up on the wall of the communal room of the community.

Training sessions starting Tuesday 16th

After a long delay in start, the members of both our ASOLs will be starting a course on entrepreneurship this coming Tuesday. Sessions will be held twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) for two and a half hours each and will last for a month. Unfortunately, we were told by a few of our beneficiaries that they will not be able to make the classes, as they are at work. We are going to try our best to change the hours, so that all can attend. The syllabus, which we have been working on together with the organization which is organizing this course (AVSI), does look very promising - we therefore do expect the members who are available to participate.

New Funding Received

About a week ago we were informed that we will be receiving new funding for your project from the French NGO (Education World 86) which has been supporting us throughout this, as well as past SOLAC projects. Thanks to the 2,000 EUROS that they are sending us, we will be able to open two new ASOLs. We are planning to have our first meetings with them at the beginning of April. This will allow at least another 20 families in the area to benefit from our project.

We thank you very much for your support!