Spring 2015 Week 6

It's been a cloudy and rainy week in Trujillo! The city has never this much rain this time of the year. We were walking home from dinner trying to avoid getting splashed with water by car when all of a sudden we were being interviewed by a news station.

This week we've been progressing in all of our classes at DanPer, Huanchacito, and the Employment Center. It's great to see that the students are getting more comfortable asking questions and making comments.

Spring 2015 Week 3

This week we made a lot of visits to current businesses. Most seem to be doing well but some have fallen behind and we will continue to try and help them with their loan payments.

We started teaching the classes within Danper in the main plant. The students seem to have quite a bit of interest but we will see. It has been extremely humid this week and has made the classroom a little uncomfortable but that's to be expected in Peru. We also started teaching the classes in Juan Cakito. The students are also very interested and many have already spoken about their business ideas. The ideas include a guinea pig farm and a corn mill.

We continue to gain momentum with the employment center classes as well. Many of the people already have experience within their industries and are eager to learn how they can improve. A word of advice for future interns is to organize the employment center classes well, because sometimes we are locked out of the main chapel and have to go to the institute behind.

This weekend we went to Huanchaco with some members of the church who have family members within the program. The sun was blazing hot so it's a good idea to wear sun screen. Often times the beach is good from about 11 am to 2 pm and then clouds and potential storms tend to roll in.

Spring 2015 Week 2

Last week, we went with Elena and Milagros to visit several businesses. We first met with Gloria who has a restaurant businesses that provides food to DanPer workers in the fields. She spoke to us about some of the issues she has been having. The main theme in each issue seemed to be the lack of clear communication in how many lunches she has to prepare as well as accessing certain areas of the field. Later in the week we met with Bertha who has an internet cafe in her home whom expressed her gratitude for the program and how it has helped her.

At Gloria's restaurant with Milagros 

We also visited Rossi, who has a beauty salon, she told us that her and her daughter Ana Cristina have been having trouble trying to keep their business open at times due to their busy schedules. Rossi is currently working a DanPer, going to school, and working at the beauty salon while Ana Cristina works at the beauty salon and goes to school. There are times when customers come looking for a haircut and the business is closed. At the moment they can't hire a hairstylist because the income doesn't lend itself.

This weekend we got to call ourselves tourists as we went on a full day tour to Chan Chan, Las Huacas del Sol y La Luna and Huanchaco. It was fascinating to learn about the Moche and Chimú and their beliefs. On our tour we also made new friends from Switzerland, Peru, and Argentina.

Museo Huacas de Moche 

Spring 2015 Week 4

Spring 2015 Week 1

WEEK ONE


This week involved getting accustomed to the Peruvian culture and food. First we started going to DanPer every day to inform the workers about the classes and the entire program. We used a huge megaphone and a large poster that showed requirements that the applicants need to have to be eligible. Not only did we go to DanPer but we went to the Fundos (fields) to get workers to register for the classes. This is the first time that these classes are being offered to the Fundo workers.

The Fundo workers were much more shy about asking questions and registering. Luckily, Kurt was able to break the ice with a joke. The workers at DanPer were the complete opposite since they have known past interns. Many people struggle to pay attention during the presentation because they are focused on enjoying their lunch hour.

 

We met with Juan Leyva who is the coordinator for the Employment Center at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  We expect a good turnout and hopefully some good business ideas from this group. Lance and Jake started the program at the Employment Center a year ago and we plan on continuing the work.

The weather here is great! It's sunny and hot, which means that we HAD to go to the beach at Huanchaco. At the beach we got to watch some awesome surfing and enjoy the sun. We enjoyed the sun so much that the guys got really sunburned. Omaira also got sunburnt, but it doesn't show as much on her for obvious reasons. We're all jealous. Luckily they've recovering well and we are ready to head back another weekend.


 

PromPeru

Last week, DanPer was offered a free advertising opportunity through the Peruvian government entity, PromPeru. PromPeru devotes their time, energy and money making Peru look alluring to would-be travelers and international businesses. In essence, they are just a really good PR team; their logo is on pens, jackets, stickers, banners, fliers, anything you can imagine.

PromPeru is currently filming a documentary -- of sorts -- about the industry of Peru. They are including DanPer, because they are among the largest agriculture businesses in the country. I was invited to watch the filming of the segment dedicated to DanPer. The filmmakers shot all over the beautiful fields of asparagus, artichoke and pepper.

I have seriously never seen more beautiful fields than those of DanPer. The road is lined with a row of wildflowers with a row of sunflowers. On one side there is a small, sandy mountain and on the other is the ocean. It is incredible to see that these people can have a successful agriculture business right out of the sand.

But the best part of filming the PromPeru was when the filmmakers shot the segment for "Sembrando Futuro." They did a testimonial interview with our very own Louisa (right.) Luisa started her own bakery business back in 2010 and has now completely payed off her loan. She still works out on the fields during the day and then during the night she helps out at the bakery.

On another note, we have had a struggled getting Gloria to full speed with her business. She has just started her restaurant about a month ago, which provides lunches to DanPer's workers. There have been complaints about the quality and quantity of the food, miscommunications with supervisors, lack of earnings, and difficulties with local competition. Seriously, the competition has been losing money to drive Gloria out of business. Overall, I am sure it has been a pretty stressful month for Gloria and her family. Though, we are hopeful that these issues have been resolved and Gloria will begin to have more success. 

Felipe has finally gotten his internet connected! He unfortunately experienced problems with the internet company for the last two months. He is looking to officially open his doors tomorrow to business. Success! 

Looking for more PromPeru? Check out their YouTube page.

Adventures in Huancaquito Alto

This week proved to be a busy one, full of visits and a couple of issues to work out. Gloria, who just started a restaurant providing food for field workers of DanPer out of her house in Huancaquito Alto, has been having some trouble with success lately. Last week, they were informed that the workers would no longer be asking for lunches made from them. (It appears that maybe the food wasn't very good one day) This is the only source of income for the restaurant, so we were all very concerned when we heard this.

To help solve the problem, Brad and Matt went to Huancaquito Alto on tuesday to help Edy (an associate of Gloria) try to get the people to their menu. Edy spoke directly with the workers, essentially asking them for a second chance, but more importantly explaining what they would offer that would make their food better than the other option. For example, they are now providing metal utensils instead of plastic. In a moment like this, it was hard for us not to speak up, wanting to vouch for the people we support. But ultimately they are responsible for their own success, and Edy was doing a great job. Luckily things went pretty well. After speaking with several groups and a lot of people, they agreed to order lunch from Gloria's restaurant. We left pretty happy, feeling like things were going to be ok. 

Two days later we did a follow up visit and found out that things didn't go as well as expected. While they still sold a number of lunches, it was only about half of what we expected. Gloria lost money on the day because she prepared more than what was actually asked for. We're still confused as to how this all happened, but it boils down to the fact that there isn't a clear communication between supervisors and Gloria. All of this reinforces the fact that good communication and management are essential to running a successful business. Every country/people is different in how they do things, and that's ok. But a major common denominator to success is clear communication. Observing all of this from an outside perspective provides a great opportunity for each of us interns to learn so that we don't make the same mistakes in the future. Despite everything, we are hopeful for Gloria and their restaurant and are confident that things will work out.

Working on finances with Gloria

While in Huancaquito Alto on our second visit, we had the opportunity to teach english at a local school. Each of us taught two to four classes, ranging in ages 7 to 16. The kids were full of energy and excited to have us there. This will probably become a weekly thing, so we hope to be able to teach better each week. 

Teaching English

Throughout the week we visited a number of different businesses that started through the program. Morgan conducted several awesome interviews of loan recipients from past years. These interviews were neat because we got to hear from several people how their lives have changed through the program. They are all so grateful for having received the opportunity to start their own business through us. Great job Morgan!

This family has successfully run their taxi business. They have payed off their loan and recently moved into a new home.