Women economic empowerment for earthquake relief

Now more than ever we need to support ventures and businesses led by Mexican women to drive the country's economic recovery.

At Crea, we have developed programs for the economic recovery of the areas affected by the earthquakes of 2017 in Mexico, through business training for women entrepreneurs.

Our work has been concentrated in Mexico City and the State of Oaxaca. We are currently focusing our work in the State of Oaxaca, particularly in the Itsmo region, in the municipalities of Santo Domingo Tehuantepec, San Dionicio de Mar, San Blas Atempa, Santa Maria Guienagati, Laollaga, and Ixtaltepec intending to reach communities where women have not recovered since the earthquake and are now facing a double emergency due to the COVID 19 health emergency.

Since June 1st, we started an online training program for three NGOs that work in the areas affected by earthquakes: Comunidades Campesinas de Camino, Una Mano para Oaxaca and Fundación Comunitaria Oaxaca. Training these NGOs will allow more women to benefit from Crea´s proven impact training program.

We are training 8 people in Personal Initiative, Development of Business Skills and Use of Information and Communication Technologies. With this, in addition to strengthening them as an organization, we also ensure that women in their region can have quality training.

The work of these NGOs is of great importance to the locality:

•  The objective of Comunidades Campesinas de Camino is to train women to sow and harvest their land and also support them in commercialization.  
• The work of Una mano para Oaxaca is to support the recovery of the earthquake-affected areas. They have rebuilt traditional bread ovens in 14 communities of Oaxaca.
• And Fundación Comunitaria Oaxaca promotes social participation through productive projects and the use of natural resources in the region.

The training for organizations will last 100 hours divided into four weeks. During the process they will not only receive information but will also put into practice the knowledge acquired. Then they will receive our advice so that they can apply this knowledge to women in their region.

Generating networks allows us to strengthen ourselves. Women and their families are the main purposes of Crea and of the organizations with which we now work.

Your donations have been of great importance to continue our work in developing entrepreneurs, so that we can accompany, promote them and help them in developing innovative and competitive businesses that manage to grow and consolidate even in times of crisis.

We are very grateful and we hope to continue counting on your donation in future campaigns. Together we can create a world with equal opportunities for female entrepreneurs.

Links:

• official website

His report shows the progress of the “Creating Networks Building Entrepreneurs” (CReCE) program that aims to promote the economy and empowerment of women; generate income and employment opportunities; cause a structural change in a society that allows women to enjoy conditions of substantive equality and integrate a support network that functions as a safe space to create contacts. This program seeks the development of local capacities of three civil society organizations so that 400 women who were affected by the 2017 earthquakes in Oaxaca can have access to Crea's methodologies.

 The specific objectives of the project:

Identify and select through a competitive process three local civil society organizations in Oaxaca that work in the municipalities of Reforma de Pineda, Huajuapan, Santa María del Mar, San Dionisio del Mar, San Mateo del Mar, and San Pedro Huilotepec and that have the characteristics to join the training process and gain the skills to implement the methodologies under the same institutional standards of Crea.

Train six to eight selected members of the three civil society organizations in Oaxaca participants to the method. Training of civil society organizations will allow them to understand the values, processes, and methodologies of Crea (Personal Initiative method and Business Skills Development method).

Track the performance of civil society organizations and provide support to ensure that all women receive the same quality of courses.

Provide support at graduation events to recognize the work of civil society organizations and women who complete the training satisfactorily.

Test the collaboration with civil society organizations, through a general report of results that will allow us to know the scope, experience, and performance of the trainers and the satisfaction of the trained women. With this, we identify good practices and key lessons learned to scale the program to other civil society organizations.

The first stage of the project has closed with calling for civil society organizations. The call had two stages: the first from December 23, 2019, to Friday, January 17, 2020, however, we do not have the desired response, so we extended it to the second stage was from January 31 at 23:59 hrs.

During this time the call was on the Crea page (crea.org.mx), social networks and we shared it with the GlobalGiving Mexico Disaster Recovery Network and with other organizations. At the close, we had three interested organizations.

We tell you a little about the work that organizations do and the interest they have in taking part in the program:

The first is an organization that has been working for five years in the municipality of San Mateo del Mar, Oaxaca, developing various initiatives to meet the productive and social demands of rural population groups in the Tehuantepec Isthmus Region.

The second is an organization that supports people who were affected by the 2017 earthquakes. Among its main activities, a business consultancy for the strengthening and/or business development of SMEs and seeks to promote innovative ventures stand out.

The last organization has no impact on the municipalities we seek to attend.

The 3 organizations that applied for the closing of the call to January 31 do not meet all the selection criteria that were established in the call, so the call period will be extended to Friday, February 14 to invite local organizations that they are identified and that meet the selection criteria.

Links:

• Crea oficial page