The Good Shepherd Sisters who run our Sucre sponsor site place a special emphasis on their work to build up women and girls who are marginalized, especially those who are impoverished, migrants, and/or survivors of violence or exploitation.
Through their work, they know that many women in Sucre city, including mothers in Chalice’s sponsorship program, do not have the skills or opportunities to earn their own incomes.
From 2021-2023, with the support of Chalice donors, the site ran the Small Business Training program – known locally as ‘Casa Mujer’. Throughout that program 395 parents, mostly women, accessed free, hands-on skills training that allowed them to open their own businesses or find work in the city. This technical training is endorsed by the Ministry of Education
Stemming from this success, the Sucre site will extend the program for another two years. In this cohort, 240 women (120 per year), will participate in the four course areas: baking/pastry making, machine knitting (loom), sportswear making, and tailoring. Each will be taught by an accredited professional. The site has the facilities and schedules organized so that, over the next two years, there will be six cycles each of the different skills courses.
In the loom course, they will to make warm apparel like children’s clothes, sweaters, and scarves. Sportswear is the most popular of the sessions, where they learn to make t-shirts, shorts, pants, and sports jackets. In baking, they’ll try out a variety of pastry dough, bread, chocolate, and local favourites like empanadas and cuñapé cheese rolls.
The staff will build on these new technical abilities with bi-monthly social skills workshops for all the women. They’ll run four workshops on self-esteem, assertive communication, empathy, and gender violence. After that, they’ll follow the women’s requests for other workshop topics.
Throughout this new iteration of the program, the staff will still check in on the past participants. They’ll include them in entrepreneurship and small business training sessions, follow-up on their various ventures, and work to find new markets for their products.
The municipality of Sucre regularly holds entrepreneurship expos and fairs, where businesspeople of all types can set up stalls, reach new customers, make connections, and take part in workshops. The Sucre site team will coordinate these kinds of opportunities with the Casa Mujer participants as they arise.
The total budget for the two-year program comes to $127,551.32 CAD. This includes staff compensation, training, small business support, and market development opportunities.
Program Location: Sucre, Bolivia
Program Code: HDP-BLS1122
Budget in Canadian Funds: $127,551.32 CAD
DONATEPlease note that any donations that exceed the request will be used to fund other community projects that may arise.