Thank you to all our sponsors

Asociación SOLAC would like to give thanks to all who sponsored the successful development of this project: the Austrian Embassy in Lima, the French NGO Education World 86, the European Schools of Brussels and Culham, as well as the private donations of family and friends.

Furthermore, the Microfinance team in particular would like to thank all who gave counsel and advice, and moral support throughout.

Meeting at the Austrian Embassy

On the 18th of January, SOLAC went to the Austrian embassy to hand in the final report of the microfinance project. We had a meeting with Mag. Rudolf Koestler, one of the people from the embassy who had been following SOLAC and the microfinance project. Mag. Koestler on behalf of the Austrian embassy thanked SOLAC for the work that had been accomplished in Alto Perú. We also had the chance to briefly meet the ambassador who also expressed his satisfaction with the results of the project. SOLAC would like to take this opportunity to thank the Austrian Embassy for supporting our work in Huachipa.

End of Project Day trip

SOLAC decided to organise a day trip for the participants of the microfinance project on the 5th of January 2011. The aim of this event was for the participants of the different ASOLs to get to know each other through different activities and games. The event was also planned as an end of project activity where the participants and the project coordinators could spend a day together before the official ending of the pilot project. SOLAC organized the event in a countryside club in the town of Chosica (eastern periphery of Lima). The participants where divided into three groups for the day. Each team had to decide a name and participate to a series of activities such as a Volleyball tournament, dance competitions, musical chairs, etc. The event also included a lunch where several participants spontaneously decided to make a speech thanking SOLAC for the work carried out in Alto Perú. All the beneficiaries expressed their contentment with day trip and said it was a very nice way to spend a time with the SOLAC team before the end of the project.

End of Project Day trip

Continuation of Practical Workshops

Due to the success of the practical workshops in Alto Perú, SOLAC decided to fund a continuation of the courses. A lot of the participants, especially from the jewellery course, were already using the skills learnt in the workshops to implement a new economic activity, and were eager to learn more. Since it was the second set of workshops, we decided to give more responsibility to the participants of the courses. SOLAC appointed one person for each course who was responsible for the organisation and the smooth running of the workshops. One person per community had also been appointed to collect the signing-up fee from people in their area. SOLAC decided to work with the same teachers as in the previous course due to the amazing work they had accomplished. The participants also asked for the same teachers as they had developed a very strong relationship with them. The knitting and jewellery workshops are composed of 20 and 39 people respectively. The latter will be divided into two workshops, a basic one for new participants and an intermediate one for the old participants. The knitting workshop will take place on Wednesdays and Saturdays and both jewellery courses on Sundays. Since SOLAC officially closed the microfinance project on the 14th of January 2011, the responsibility of following the workshops has been passed on to the former microfinance coordinators, Valentina Martufi, Ruth Pollak, and Marta Dormal. The courses started on the 22nd and 23rd of January.

Closing cycles and Pass-over

The culminating moment of the project was the pass-over of the groups formed by SOLAC to an established MFI which could expand the provision of services of Village Banking microfinance to more people in the area of Alto Perú, and secure a long-term availability of these services. In July 2010, after having drawn up a list of MFIs in Lima, it resulted only possible to pass-over the groups to an institution already present in the district of Lurigancho-Chosica. Two NGOs were contacted and their programmes were explained to the members of the ASOLs. Each NGO came in October to present themselves to the ASOLs and to clarify any doubts the participants may have. All four ASOLs chose the NGO EDAPROSPO (www.edapr.org.pe), with which two of the four groups, Las Triunfadoras and Karin, have already received their loan disbursement and one, Unidos para el Desarrollo, is in the process of starting a new loan cycle. The fourth group, Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, has decided to postpone the start of their next cycle and remain in contact with the organisation. All the ASOLs finished their cycle with SOLAC with a 100% repayment rate. The participants explained that they decided to work with EDAPROSPO because they felt very comfortable with the coordinator who came to present the organisation, Jonathan Estrada. EDAPROSPO’s microfinance programme, called PROSPERIDAD (“prosperity”), is very focused on providing practical and entrepreneurial workshops, an aspect that resulted very important for the people in Alto Perú. In this new programme, the participants have to get used to a different payment system, where every month the members of the ASOL give their instalment to the treasurer who deposits the money in the organisation’s bank account. Working with a commercial bank is an important new step for a lot of the participants of the project. EDAPROSPO’s aim is to continue expanding the outreach of microfinance within Alto Perú.

Seed Money Competition (Concurso Capital Semilla)

SOLAC decided to carry out an additional activity as part of the microfinance project, the Seed Money Competition (Concurso Capital Semilla). The purpose of this competition was to give funding to the most creative entrepreneurial ideas. The competition was only open to the beneficiaries of the microfinance programme, and those who wished to participate had to fill out a questionnaire where they evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of their existing business as well as proposed a new idea to improve their business in a substantial way (or to suggest a new business idea they wanted to implement). SOLAC made it very clear to the participants that the purpose of the competition was to fund ideas that would generate a significant change in the current situation of their economic activity. The competition would not approve ideas that included merchandise or any other investment that could be implemented with a loan from the microfinance project. A total of twelve people participated from the three communities.

After evaluating the proposals, SOLAC decided to interview some of the participants who seemed to have the most interesting ideas. A week after the participants gave in the proposals, SOLAC announced the three winners at the end of the fashion show. By coincidence, all three winners were from the same ASOL, Unidos para el Desarrollo, in Santa Isabel. One of winners was Emilia Huincho, the secretary from the ASOL who makes clothing and asked for a sewing machine she had needed for a very long time. That machine would allow her to modernise her merchandise and therefore get more orders from local factories. Another winner was Zarella Coveñas the treasurer of the ASOL who has a food delivery business. Zarella prepares food from her house for teachers at local schools nearby, as well as for construction workers who come to Alto Perú for the day. She had been receiving several very large orders from the schools (for 25 people instead of 5 to 10 people) but was unable to deliver because of the size and quality of her equipment. She asked for professional kitchen equipment. The third winner was Mary Gutierrez, a member of the ASOL who used to sell snacks and sodas from a mobile cart. Mary wanted to set up a small café where she would continue to sell snacks and sodas, as well as juices and cakes.

Each winner was assigned to one of the project organisers to go shopping for the materials they needed to implement their idea. An agreement was also signed by each one of them and by SOLAC, stating that the winners would use the materials bought to make their business grow, and that they would report to SOLAC on a regular basis to inform them about the development of their business with the new equipments for a period of three months. The agreement also stated that SOLAC was committed to follow each participant with their new equipment and to assist them in anything they needed. All the equipment was bought on the first week of December for the three participants. SOLAC is very happy about the follow-up of the winners and is looking forward to see the development of their businesses thanks to these new investments.

Seed Money Competition (Concurso Capital Semilla)

Practical Workshops and Fashion Show

The two practical workshops in Alto Perú began on the 23rd and 24th of October. The knitting and jewellery workshops started with a total of 16 and 25 participants respectively. SOLAC decided to implement strict rules for participating to the workshops to ensure the smooth running of the courses. A 5 PEN fine was charged to any participant arriving 15 minutes late or more to class, and a 10 PEN fine for missing a session. The workshops were extremely successful throughout the six weeks. Both Vilma and Gloria were very happy with the enthusiasm and the results achieved by the participants of the course.

At the end of the six weeks SOLAC, together with the participants and the teachers, organised a fashion show to give the participants the opportunity to show their families and the rest of the community the amazing work they accomplished throughout the course. A lot of people also took advantage of this opportunity to sell their products to other people in Alto Perú and to start making a name for themselves with their new activity in the community. The event was entirely financed by the fines collected from people arriving late to or missing the workshops sessions. One group was in charge of preparing food for the event, another to organise all the logistics (chairs, sound system, etc) and finally one woman decided to prepare small Christmas baskets (mainly food such as pasta, milk, etc) and to organise a raffle at the event for all the participants of the two courses. We invited the two teachers to present the different items to the audience. The participants of the knitting workshop presented a summer collection for babies and kids. The colours of the collection were pink, magenta and purple, and each participant designed and made one to three items for the collection (mainly a combination of top, hat and a bag). Each participant invited one kid from their family to model the item for the fashion show. For the jewellery workshop, the participants learnt a different ensemble (necklace, bracelet and earings) every week as well as several models of key rings. Each person brought some items they had done in class with the teachers as well as many others they had made by themselves. Many of them designed and made new models especially for the fashion show. We also had one man participating in the workshop who made jewellery for both men and women.

The event was a huge success; the audience was extremely impressed by the amazing work accomplished by the participants in terms of quality and creativity. All the participants received a diploma that certified the completion of a basic course. Out of the sixteen people who signed-up for the knitting workshop only ten completed the course due to time restrictions and other commitments. All the participants from the jewellery workshop completed the course, some of which were children of the beneficiaries of the microfinance project. The feedback from the participants was extremely positive, and we have had since then a lot of demand to continue with the courses.

The Fashion Show

Planning of Practical Workshops for Alto Perú

SOLAC decided to start practical workshops for the beneficiaries of the microfinance pilot project with the aim of giving the participants an opportunity to learn new skills that they may later use to start a new economic activity or to create an additional source of income (it is very common for micro entrepreneurs in Lima to have more than one small business).

We put together a list of six different options for the practical workshops according to what was more feasible to carry out in the community. The list of choices included: knitting and crochet, jewellery, yogurt, jam, pastry, and chocolate workshops. The members of each ASOL voted to decide the two workshops that we going to be implemented. The most popular choices were knitting and crochet, and the jewellery workshop. We contacted professional teachers for each workshop that were recommended to us by other NGOs, Vilma Acuña for knitting and Gloria Cabrera for jewellery, and we elaborated a six-week plan for each course. For the knitting and crochet workshop we decided, together with the teacher, that the course was going to take place twice a week on Tuesdays and Saturdays for three-hour sessions. The teacher explained to us that it was very important to have at least two sessions per week for the knitting and crochet workshop, as it is a very difficult skill to learn and requires a lot of practice at a basic level. For the jewellery workshop we decided to have a three-hour session per week on Sundays for six weeks. We also set a 5 PEN fee to sign-up for the course as a symbolic amount to ensure the commitment of people who decided to participate. The fee also included a set of materials for each participant for the course that they could take home to practice what they learnt in class. SOLAC decided to give priority for the signing-up to the workshop to the participants of the microfinance pilot project, then according to the vacancies in each course to the rest of the people of Alto Perú. The Head mistress of the local primary school, Nelli Villegas, agreed to let us use one of the classrooms of the school to carry out the workshops.