Sutiava, Nicaragua
The objective of the SME program is to contribute to the economic development of families and produce an improved standard of living. The development philosophy of ViviendasLeón is asset based: to work with families and communities to identify personal, communal and natural assets that can be used as resources for development. These resources include levels of education, self-esteem and technical or creative skills; land, water and sunlight; domestic animals, trees and plants.
The program coordinates these resources through training and supports the launch of small business projects such as beekeeping and honey production, sewing cooperatives or fruit and vegetable wholesale businesses. Through this program, families have increased their income, created future prospects and improved their domestic relationships while reducing their vulnerabilities, resulting in an overall improvement in attitude, leadership, entrepreneurship and economic health among members of the communities.
An example is COABE, a honey cooperative started with an investment by ViviendasLeon in a group of women who we had recently trained in our HCT program. They attended a week of business workshops developed by students from the USF School of Management in 2012, and went on to create a thriving honey and bee products business.
Openly discussing empathy, assertive communication, expressing our emotions and knowing how to channel them has been something new for our participants. What the participants expressed during this module has been nothing short of incredible...
Continue reading >"We started the COABE collective with some training and other women members. First they gave us 5 boxes and in less than a year we already had 30 hives."
Continue reading >''Before I received my training and materials to start my family farm, we only harvested grains such as corn and wheat, and vegetables like bell peppers...Now we grow tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, beans, lemons, bell peppers, eggplant and cucumber, and we have more varieties of seeds...this has improved our nutrition, and our children are healthier"
Gabriela Davila
