Transform The Lives of 5 Entrepreneurs in Colombia

Dear donors,

Happy New Year! We hope 2015 brings you strength, energy and passion to turn your dreams to reality! Corporación Interactuar and the 5 families in this project are sincerely grateful for your support throughout the entire last year. I am writing you to update you on how your contribution to the this project has improved the quality of life these business owners live.

I want to introduce you to Sofía, a 51 years old woman with a right arm and both legs disability she suffers from since she was 2. She refused to let this stop her from providing for her family so she learned how to sew and completed training at SENA, a national education institution.

Ana Sofía has an old and outdated sewing machine that she uses to create leather wallets, bags and souvenirs. She uses a cutting table and a manual cutting tool for the production and treatment of leather. Being only one handed, Sofía can only handle the sewing machine so she finds herself overwhelmed with the workload at times. When this happens she gets help from one of her friends, also with a disability, and her mother and sister. Her small business has a brand identity and her products are known to be qualitative and really beautiful.

However, she needs to make her products get sold and provide a constant and feasible income for her and her family, she needs support in pricing her products and equipment improvement.  This is where you come in. Your donation can allow her to be trained in administrative skills and pricing strategy so that she can make her products cost effective.

The pricing issue is important to Sofía as she doesn’t have any specific knowledge on the matter. Her condition makes it difficult for her to wander around shops in the city and compare prices and she also lacks knowledge on the pricing process. The training she will receive thanks to your support will help her discover the true value of her creations and monetize correctly her work.  

You can give Sofía the chance to overcome social and economic barriers she faces on daily basis. She’s not the only one struggling to provide for her family despite her situation. ‘Transform the lives of 5 entrepreneurs in Colombia’ supports other four small business owners in the same situation. A one-time donation, a recurring donation or a gift card to your loved ones helps them take another step in their life journey.  Each of them counts. Find on the right column of the project page the benefits your donation brings to Ana Sofía and the other micro entrepreneurs with disabilities in the project. 

We know it’s a challenging cause and we expect 2015 to greets us with many challenges but also with the right team and tools to face them successfully. Our team now includes members from Brasil, Canada, France, India, Guatemala, Mexico who will bring their international experience in the campaign.

In order to improve our campaign and approach, we appreciate your feedback on the communication between us in 2014. Also, we would love to hear what made you stay close to us and support our cause and what we can do more to contribute to these projects.

Note: ‘Transform the lives of 5 entrepreneurs in Colombia’ is part of the Together for Colombia campaign that we developed in order to raise awareness on the social and economic reality of this country and involve the international community in changing it to the better. Keep in touch with us on Facebook and Twitter.

Looking forward to hear from you,