Support Families in Mexico to Start Saving

Not much seems to intimidate Celia. When she first moved to Cabo San Lucas five years ago, she dove right into tackling some of the biggest challenges her new community faced. She saw children who were left alone in their homes because their parents were away working. Those same children often did not have enough to eat and did not have educational assistance with homework and class materials. So Celia started a small support group for these children.

“I started under a tree, with a group of eight children. We didn’t even have tables or chairs. From there, the word began to spread about our work,” says Celia.

Through her work in the community, she discovered la Alianza para la Seguridad Alimentaria de Baja California Sur (ASA), which works to provide food access, as well as support trainings and resiliency programs, to low-income communities throughout Baja California Sur, Mexico. Celia signed up for a variety of trainings that ASA offered, all designed to help her gain more capacity as a community member and as a leader. One of the trainings that ASA offered Celia was participation in a Community Savings Group (CSG) of Philanthropiece AC.

The CSG that Celia joined christened itself Las Mariposas del Caribe (Butterflies of the Caribbean).The group is now in its second savings cycle. It began with eight members, all women, and is now up to fifteen members, including some children. The women are especially excited about getting their children involved, since the children have the opportunity to learn things that many of the women never learned when they were younger. Children can learn from the successes that their mothers are having, and also establish good financial habits for the future. And the financial knowledge that the group members gain can ripple out into their family and their community.

“When a woman is in control of her finances, she feels empowered, knowing that she can have money and she can manage it. It gives us a lot of security and changes our lives and the family environment,” says Celia.

With successes like that, Celia and other community members are realizing the hope and possibility of collaborations like the one between Philanthropiece A.C. and ASA. “This program with ASA has helped me. With the trainings and attention, it has given me the wings I needed so that I could help other families,” says Celia.

With your support via the GlobalGiving platform, there are currently 65 groups alongside the Mariposas del Caribe that are actively saving and strengthening their communities together. Thank you so much for supporting us in building a better world!

Links:

• 2022 Annual Report Philanthropiece A.C. (Spanish and English)
• Food Security Network of Baja California Sur