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!

.

  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.