Making Plans

This week our focus was on planning our remaining classes, teaching, and scheduling a time to visit each project before we leave -- we've been very busy! Time has flown by and we only have two work weeks left! We're determined to pack in as much as we can to these last weeks, and a big part of that is helping our students compile their rough draft business plan.

We're compiling business plans by giving homework that specifically outlines details they will need for their complete plan. We then collect and review their homework, and place it in a folder for each individual project. By the time we leave, they will have information on the history of their business or business idea, the market they are entering, their competition, their goals for growth, and their differentiation plans. We're really excited because these folders will help the next interns understand each project and hopefully allow them to jump right into teaching and working with each idea! Many of the ideas great and we want to help DanPer's workers accurately and successfully capture their idea on paper.

Another important task we have before we leave is to visit each project and write a summary of how they are currently doing. This summary will help the coming interns get acquainted with our current projects and their successes and difficulties. We visited five businesses this week, and each of them are looking great! We're working with the receipts for a few of these projects to help them understand more clearly their income and expenses.

One issue we're working to resolve is having workers in the field bring their "socio" or partner. Because the program is offered to workers at DanPer, both in the factory and in the fields, the participants are required to have a partner to help them manage the business. DanPer doesn't want to lose it's best workers when they become entrepreneurs, but it still wants to help them take the initiative to better their lives. Partners are a very important part of the program and we need them to be at every class, because their input and learning are just as vital as the workers.

Not all of our workers in the fields have partners that are coming each lesson, and this is something we've been working on. We're trying to impress upon them that if they don't take the structure of the program seriously, it may be hard for their business plan to be approved without anyone available to run their business! We'll keep working on this until we leave, and we already had some new faces in our Friday class, so we are optimistic they'll all find partners.

Overall, we're very excited to see business plans coming together!! As our time here gets shorter we've made a list of things to do and people we need to see before we leave Trujillo. We love being here, and we're going to pack these next two weeks with everything we want to accomplish!

Works in Progress

This week was a busy week for us. Our classes are in full session and we are teaching in two different places four times a week. It has been great for us and we are loving it so far. We are still in the early stages of the classes and we are getting to know the people better, but we are already seeing several people who have great ideas for projects and who are very willing to work hard in order to receive a loan further on so they can start their projects.
                     
  Monday and Thursday are the days we have decided to teach in the main Danper plant here in Trujillo. We have a group of about 60 people who signed up for the class, but usually about 40 or so show up. This group is great and they are very participative and there are several of them who have great ideas for businesses. They have completed Phase One of the teaching material and they have already turned in 2 homework assignments which are helping us the determine how to teach them and how we can custom make our classes in order to teach them what they really need to know.

 Tuesdays and Fridays are dedicated to teaching in Compositan, which also involves a lot of traveling. We first take a taxi to a certain part of town where we them get on a bus that takes us to a neighboring town about an hour away called Viru. From Viru we have a special transportation van that takes us another 25 minutes through a few little towns but eventually gets to where we give our classes. We teach in an auditorium made out of wood beams and tarps, it may not sound like a lot but it gets the job done. We borrow a projector and have 2 bed sheets tied together to make a screen for it to project onto. In Compositan we have only had one class with about 20 people. The people are very quiet which makes it hard to know if they are understanding, but none the less we are still happy and excited to advance with them and their projects as well. We may have to teach at a different pace with this group, but we are sure it will all turn out fine.

  A little side note, this week our house got fumigated once again because the bugs that were biting me got passed on to Katrina as well, so to stop them finally we had the whole apartment sprayed on Friday afternoon. Katrina and I got to spend our weekend in a hotel here in Trujillo and enjoy a much needed mini vacation. We are both back in the apartment now and I am no longer sleeping on the couch. Now we wait and see if the bugs come back, lets hope they don't!

Our First Classes!

This week was excellent! We finally got everything in order and to the point where we could start our classes and that is exactly what we did. We were able to spend a few days at DanPer notifying all of the workers that had been chosen and getting them passes so that their family members could enter into the plant. It was a pretty stressful situation because we had to locate over 30 workers, but it was all worth it on Thursday night.

Thursday night we had our Opening class where we congratulated all of the workers that were accepted and we were able to explain a few of the basics of the program and what we were going to expect from them. Elena did most of the explaining, but Katrina and I got our chance to talk and introduce ourselves, as well as a Alejandro and Javier who are two important leaders in DanPer.

We had about 50 people there, so not all of the workers showed up, but we were happy with the outcome and we are excited to finally get things moving. We will have our first teaching class tonight where we will go over the basics of loaning and our policy of what we expect from them and how the loans will function.

The class preparation took up most of our week, but we were still able to keep up with a few of our business. Rudth is still pricing a few things and getting things figured out to the point that we can start getting her some money. She is working super hard to cut cost and find ways that she can provide us with collateral. She is great and a super hard worker so we know she can do it and we help in all that we can.

This Friday was a holiday so we didn't have to work! We took it easy most of the day but were lucky enough to get invited to a Halloween party with a couple of American church members where we ate sugar cookies and played some fun games. It was for sure the highlight of our long weekend.

 

Reassesments

   This week we were all sorts of excited to get started up with our classes, we already have the list of the people who have been accepted so all we needed to do was set a time and place and we were good to go. Unfortunately, there has been a few problems with some of our past loan recipients that have caused another set back. Elena, our supervisor, and the leaders at DanPer have all been looking at recent occurrences and have decided that now would be a good time to reassess our loan policy and rewrite a few of our rules and guidelines. This really is a smart thing to do because there we a couple things that really did need to be changed, so after several meeting this week we have somewhat come to a conclusion as to what the changes will be and what our new requirements will be and how exactly our loaning process will be.

   We were able to go talk with a few of our projects this week, one of which was Bertha. Bertha has had her internet business up and running for a little more than a month now and is already seeing the fruits of it! Her sales were great and she kept her costs very low. We were able to sit down with her and decide her payment plan as well and she will be making her first payment here within the next couple of days. Bertha and her family are extremely excited and we are very proud of her as well and the great effort she is making to make here business successful.

   Our first class presentation is all ready and we are ready to teach! this Wednesday should be our first class and we are super excited for it! we cant wait to finally do what we were sent here to do which is teach. We have been set back a little bit but we are going to make the most out of our time and teach all we can in the time we have.

   We had a fun weekend as well. We visited a place we had heard about called the Laguna of Conache. After about an hour on two different busses we were able to arrive to this really cool little secluded body of water where the sun was beaming and we could take it easy. We ate a delicious water side meal and finished it off with some sandboarding on a nearby dune! It was a really neat experience for both of us.

Round Two!!

A large portion of our time this week was focused on finding out why our registration numbers for classes were so low in Huancaquito. We discovered that people were interested, but our presentations to large groups we're very effective at persuading workers to sign up. By talking about the program with smaller groups, we were able to find enough interested workers to fill our Huancaquito class! We're especially excited to work with these people as the SEED program has never been offered to workers in this area before.

Another exciting part of our week was Dalton finally getting effective treatment for his bug bites! After dealing with them for over a week, and the medicine he had purchased not working, Elena took him to a clinic here in Trujillo. He was prescribed stronger medicine and cream, and he'll go back in this coming week to make sure they are clearing up. We also Dalton's room in the apartment fumigated and he was banished to sleep on the couch for a few nights. It's all cleared out now, and we are hoping we are bug free!

We also spent time prepping for classes and arranging the course schedules. Classes will be starting late this year according to DanPer's staff count. Sembrando Futuro is to help the workers of DanPer, and they can most effectively do this when the plants and fields are fully staffed. Reaching full production started a little late this year, and so we will be working hard to fit all the important material into a smaller amount of time. With a little planning and focused classes, we're confident we can effectively teach all the material.

A highlight of our week was a visit to Rudth's home to see the area she is going to convert into her sewing business. We reviewed her costs in detail to see how they compared to the portion of her loan allocated to construction expenses. The room needs to be more secure and will be getting doors and a new window, as it is currently just open to the outside. There will also be new electrical wiring and outlets for her sewing machines, and a concrete floor. We're really excited to see construction begin and to help her get up and running.

This weekend we explored the famous Huacas de la Luna y del Sol, and we were impressed! These were sacred buildings from the Moche people, built from mud bricks and decorated with colorful murals and carvings. The Moche people were also impressive potters and they have recovered quite a few interesting pieces. There is so much history here in Trujillo!

Preperations

  This week you could say was not one of our most adventurous ones. But just because it wasn't adventurous doesn't mean it wasn't necessary and beneficial. We received the lists of all of the people who wanted to sign up for our program and were fairly pleased with the results in all but one area. In our main plant here in Trujillo we had over 60 people sign up for the program, which we all though was quite impressive. It was most likely due to our diligence in waking up early each morning and getting to Danper and talking personally with the workers from the plant. We were able to also talk to them during their lunch breaks and sign them up on the spot for those that were interested.

  One thing that really surprised us and caught us off guard is that after all the time we spent in Huancaquito and out in the fields with the workers, we got a call saying that only one person had signed up for the program, one person! So this threw us through a loop and we really doubted weather or not to even do the program out in Huancaquito or if we should just focus all our efforts on teaching here in the plant. We have decided that we will give it another shot and be more hands on with our approach and we are going back to Huancaquito this week to see if we cant sign a few people up ourselves instead of trusting other people to do it for us.

  We are very behind schedule as far as starting our classes and everything goes, but it has been due to things that are really our of our control. We spent this week preparing a few presentations for our classes and it has really got us excited to start and get our plan into motion. With any luck we will finally be teaching by the end of this week or early next week.

  Tuesday this week was a holiday and we took advantage and went to a movie at one of the malls here, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, and we loved it! Katrina and I despite all the time we spend in the office still find time to have fun and see neat things. We were able to go once again to Huanchaco this weekend and enjoy a little bit of the beach. The only negative thing in our experience so far is I (Dalton) seem to have a small bug problem in my bed and have been waking up with new bug bites every morning that are super itchy and annoying. I have been to the doctor at Danper and I have bought a cream and some pills but so far they aren't proving to be very affective, but that is just the way it goes! Over all its a great experience!

Spread The Word!!

  This week was full of waking up early and taking busses to different parts of Trujillo. We focused 100% this week on spreading the word about our program  to the largest amount of workers possible, not only at the main plant here in Trujillo, but also out in the fields hours away in Mochik, and Huancaquito. It was tiring but very rewarding when we got to explain the program and watch people gain interest in involving themselves.

  Much of our time was spent at the main plant here in Trujillo. Because most workers enter the plant before 7:00am, we had to wake up super early and get to the plant so we could address them before the entered to work. Elena really did most of the speaking, but we often times were pulled aside to further explain and answers questions to people who were truly interested.

  We got to participate in what would be considered a work party in the fields with all the workers. They had finished their work on a part of the field for this season and were celebrating with music, food, soccer and gifts. We only took a few minutes of their time to announce the program and then let them get back to their festivities.

  Because so much of our time was spent on the diffusion of the program, we didn't get to make a lot of personal business visits, but we did make time for a few that we saw were very necessary. We focused on two that have yet to make their payments for this past month so that we could find out what was happening and for the most part it was just everyday things that kept them from paying and we were able to solve the problems.

  It was a busy week, but a week full of necessary work. We are happy to have the program announces, and now this week will go through the filtering process and will choose those who will take part in the classes!

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  As for fun this week.. We went to the largest mud-built city in the entire world called Chan Chan. It was cool to see and very interesting to learn about the culture and history of the Chimú.

Waiting on Paper!

  Our second full week of work here in Peru has come to an end and like always it has its news and stories to tell. Although most everything is going rather well for us, we have had just one minor setback. We got the chance to visit with most of the remaining businesses that we didn't get to meet with last week, and they all seem to be doing well. Rudth, the lady who wants to start her own sewing business signed her contract and was able to go to the notary with us and get everything signed off and we are ready to start the financing process!
  Our setback this week is frustrating because it is something out of our control. In order to recruit people for our classes and to involve them in the program we have created a small pamphlet that we created on Word and sent to be printed off so that we could pass them out and try to get people interested in the program. Well the pamphlet has been finished for over a week now and still has yet to be printed! I guess the company that was supposed to print them was unsure of what we expected of them and long story short we had to take our business elsewhere and we should have the pamphlets done and ready to hand out early in this week.

  Due to the fact that Jaquelin is no longer working with us, Danper Sembrando Futuro has decided to hire on a part time worker to help out with the communications part of what we do. So this week we got to go to Danper and take part in the process of interviewing two candidates for the job and help in the decision making. We have decided to hire on a girl named Milagros who seemed very ready and qualified for the job.
  A lot of our time this week was spent here in the office getting things organized and put into order. Its hard to keep everything organized and neat when you are in charge of several businesses financing and papers, but after a lot of work we got it somewhat figured out!
  This weekend we took a trip to the beach at Huanchaco to watch the longboard world championships! The weather was awesome and the beach was lush! We only got slightly lost on the way home after taking the wrong bus, but thanks to a few nice Peruvians we were able to make it home! Also this week there was a huge parade on the main street by our house signifying the end of the spring celebrations here in Trujillo. It was really neat to see all the traditional clothing and dances displayed as they walked down the streets.

  This upcoming week will be spent spreading the word about our program and finding people for our classes. We wish for the best and hopefully can find people who are sincerely interested in taking the steps to start their own business!

Welcome to Peru!

We spent this week getting oriented in Trujillo - visiting DanPer, meeting with past loan recipients, and reviewing project financials. Elena has helped us to jump right in and kept us busy.

On Monday, we toured the DanPer facility and learned about the production of artichokes, asparagus, mangoes, pimientos, and salsa. We also met Alejandro, the director of Sembrando Futuro. We'll be working with him more to evaluate the program's success and promote growth. At the end of the day we got to take a tour of the plant and see just how they process the asparagus and get it ready to be packaged and shipped, it was pretty sweet!

 We got to start working with a few of our clients from last phase as well, on of which is named Bertha. Bertha, received a loan to make modifications to her home to prepare it for an internet business she wants to run in her neighborhood. The interns before us helped her with the construction part and we got to help her find, buy, and install her new computers in her house! It was amazing to see the before and after pictures. Bertha and her daughter were so proud of what they had accomplished, and their joy was infectious. We were grateful to be able to help them!

We spent a lot of time getting to know several of our clients this week. We made trip to Huancaquito to visit the Panaderia and we also went to Moche to do small business checkups with several businesses, all of which seem to be doing well and making great progress with their businesses.

This week in Peru is the celebration of spring so we had a fun night in the Plaza de Armas listening to musical groups play and we got to see a huge group of queens from the Lions Club come through the plaza. It was a super fun night and it was cool to see other Americans in the celebration who we could speak English too!


We love Trujillo and the work we've been able to do with SEED so far! We start teaching our classes next week so we have lots of preparation work to do this week in order to be ready for that experience.

Welcome Peru Fall Interns

Friday brings the start of a new class and the beginning of another internship.  Here is a little bit about the interns that will be working in Trujillo Peru this fall.

Dalton Birky

Sophomore – International Business

My name is Dalton Birky, I am a 21 year old resident of Logan Utah and student at Utah State University. I come from a family of eight, and have lived in Logan all my life. I served an LDS mission in Argentina, which is how I learned my Spanish, and developed my love for South America. I am a sophomore in college and my intended major is International Business, I have always been interested in business and I would love to continue to use my Spanish in my job somehow. I love to dirt bike, camp, fish, shoot guns and go digging! Pretty much anything outdoors interests me.

When I was first introduced to the SEED program I knew it was something I wanted to do because it’s the perfect way to not only learn the basics of how to create and manage a business, but it is also a great way to share what I have learned thus far.  Hopefully this will be an experience that will take not only my knowledge but also my experience in the business field to the next level. I plan to use this experience as a base for my future studies and career decision.

Katrina Nieveen

Senior – Accounting with MIS minor

I love to learn, particularly through reading and traveling. I especially enjoy Jane Austen and Shakespeare, along with contemporary literature discussing ethics and gender roles. I also like to spend time outdoors: swimming, hiking, canoeing, and camping.

I was interested in a SEED internship as an opportunity to help give back while expanding my own understanding of business concepts and entrepreneurship. I’m excited to get to know and work with the people of Trujillo.

A Time for Reflection

Wow, I can't believe that three months has already come and gone! I have really had a great experience here in Peru. This past week I have had a lot of time to reflect on the things that we've done and the experiences we have been through and I would have to say that it has been worth the trip. So to end off I would just like share a few of things that I think have made this an excellent internship and experience.

The Work

As a SEED Intern I was able to get a lot of exposure to creating business plans and financial projections for real people. It really brought to life a lot of the basic business principles that I had learned throughout school. Also it was neat to be able to go and visit already existing businesses and to see their successes and struggles and then try and find ways to help them overcome those struggles or become in more successful.

The Culture

I don't think there's a better way to get to know a foreign culture than actually visiting the country and surrounding yourself with it. Really throughout the three months that I have been here, the Latin-American culture has continued to grow on me. Everyone is so nice to visitors and you know that the family is one of the most important things to them. Also, even though the music is a little more reggae than I'm used to, I somehow still managed to kind of learn how to dance to it.

The People

I can't even express how great the people are down in Peru.There are the people I worked with, Elena Pajilla, Jacqueline Saavedra and Alejandro Falcón. Each one of these people have been nothing but nice to us and have gone out of their way to make sure that we are comfortable and have everything we need and not to mention that they've become our friends. Also Dallin and I have had the opportunity to make friends with a lot of other peruvians and it has definitely enriched and made our experience that much better.

I'm excited to come home, but the thing I'll miss the most are the people, the friends that I have made here in Peru. Thank goodness for Facebook!

And now I would like to end by saying the SEED Internship is definitely a most do for college students!

Penultimate Semana

As our title suggests, nearing the end of our experience here, we are getting really good at mixing languages. Some words are just better expressed in Spanish while others are better in English. It's nice having another bi-lingual friend to share so many wonderful experiences with.

Good News! This week we issued our first official loan during our stay. Santos, a long time loan client whom we trust very much, requested about a month ago a medium sized loan to prepare for the Peruvian Independence holiday. The holidays took place this past weekend on July 28th and 29th. Santos owns a mini-market in a town outside of Trujillo called Alto Moche. She has a great location right off the Plaza in the center. She requested her loan to increase her inventory expecting to have high sales during the weekend. As we have not yet been in contact with her since the holiday, we do not know how well it has gone for her, but we expect to find out sometime this week. Santos has been great to work with. She constantly is thinking of ideas on how to expand and grow.

As for us, we spent our weekend participating in LDS Young Single Adult activities. Starting on Friday, regional YSA activities have taken place in various locations and we were able to spend time with the great young adults of this area. Monday the 29th we traveled with hundreds of young adults to a recreational park and participated in various activities throughout the day including soccer, group games, a dance, and other competitions. We had a great time!

Most of the group after the activities!

Life After Work

Today I wanted to talk a little bit about what Dallin and I do after we are done working. The regular workday here in Peru goes from about 9:30 in the morning until 7:30 at night. Somedays we are working the entire day, while other days we are able to get off earlier and spend the day doing some different things. So what do we do when we're not working?

Chili's Friday Special!

Dine Out
Well usually the first thing we do is we go out and eat. We don't have our own kitchen, so we have
spent the last few months finding our favorite places to dine out. These include american food places like Papa Johns, Chili's and Gringo Loco (a hamburger joint owned by a texan, great burgers!). It also includes a few peruvian restaurants where we can get some of our favorite dishes like aji de gallina, lomo saltado, sandwiches and pollo a la brasa.

Go Exploring
When we first got to Trujillo we spent a lot of our free time exploring. We went out to see some of the big markets where we could by inexpensive souvenirs or just walk through downtown trujillo checking out the old buildings and parks that are scattered around.

Movies
In Trujillo there are three different movie theaters and Dallin and I have seen a movie each of them. We watched Star Trek and Man of Steel in Spanish and then just last week we watched Now You See Me in English with Spanish subtitles. The movies were great but I definitely get lost sometimes while watching a movie in Spanish.

Adriano's 7th Birthday Party!

Hang Out with Friends
Dallin and I have been able to make a lot of new friends by attending a local church here in Trujillo. Everyone we have met have been super kind to us and we have always been invited to attend different activities and many other things. So far we have gone to two birthday parties, a game night, played soccer and volleyball, made american pancakes, and gone to a bonfire. Spending time with our friends here in Peru has been a great way to get to know and see peruvian culture at its finest!

Netflix and Monopoly
Also since its winter here and it gets dark around 6:30 to 7 p.m. there are a quite a few nights where we don't really feel like exploring or getting out to much. So instead we have become good friends Netflix. In Peru Netflix even has a different variety of shows and movies to watch and one of our most recent series that we have gotten into is Community. Also, if we don't feel like watching Netflix, we have borrowed Monopoly from some friends.

Oh P.S. Jacque had her baby!!

A Typical Business Visit

Last Wednesday, we had a long and productive visit with Jeanette who raises cattle to sell the milk. This gave us the idea to give all you readers a better idea of what we do when we visit the current projects. I will describe a typical business visit.

Preparation: Before we make any visit, we take a few minutes in the office to determine what our goals are for the visit. After we have defined our goals, we ensure we have everything we need to take with us. This could include blank reports, a computer, or materials from a previous visit.

Evaluation: After greeting the person, one of the first things we do is talk about their past performance related to reports or other documents they have given us. Usually the people don't really have a good idea of how they are doing financially so we take their documented numbers and organize them to help them see how their money is being used (or made). We deliver this report during the visit.

Mentoring: When we deliver our reports, we give our interpretation of how we think their business is doing. At this time we also give them suggestions on how we think they could improve or better use their resources. We also love listening to them and learning more about their business and why they think some ideas would work and others would not. We learn just as much or more from each project as they do from us.

Improvement: After we take the time to hash things out, we usually end up with some great ideas to implement in the future. Sometimes the clients will make suggestions on how we can improve the format of our reports (like in the case of Jeanette) or we come up with new ideas for their reports or operations. We then set up a return appointment to check up on the new ideas.

Time has flown by for us here in Peru. We only have three weeks left, and we can't believe how much we have done and how much there is left. We've tried to stay busy with current projects and second time loan prospects as we continue to wait for the final decision on first time loan applicants this year.

There and Back Again

This past week Dallin and I spent a total of 62 hours on buses and 12 hours in layovers in order to visit Cusco and Machu Picchu. You may be asking yourself, "Why didn't you just take a plane?" Well the bus was significantly cheaper and we wanted to save money for souvenirs. You may also be asking yourself, "Was it worth it?" Absolutely!! I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Cusco - Outside of the Chocolate Museum

Machu Picchu

Dallin's Armrest

Yeah I get air...

The two of us celebrating Dallin's B-Day!