Leticia Jáuregui, Founder and Director of CREA, collaborated in the tenth anniversary of the Stanford Social Innovation Review with a text about how money is not a sufficient condition for success by emphasizing the need for an entrepreneurial culture, business and technology skills among others. We invite you to read the full text on this important topic of social innovation.

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Our director Leticia Jáuregui participated in the World Economic Forum as part of the global community of Global Shapers, a network of young people between 20 and 30 who seek to develop their leadership through social work. Leticia was the only global shaper of Mexico, we invite you to read about her learning experience and the knowledge that allowed her attend the Forum in Davos this year as well as her participation in a panel with Muhtar Kent, CEO of Coca-Cola, Bea Perez CSO Coke and Jose Antonio Fernandez, CEO of Coca-Cola FEMSA.

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- “We started with the idea of having a better income for the family,” Mary

How did the idea was created?:

It started when we made sauces for family consumption with a history of how they do in other parts of the country, specifically in the Yucatan and so gave different northern flavor to sauces.

They had a lot of capital and sold them first and then in other stores.

They have four different products:

° Habanero Salsa
° Green Salsa Diabla
° Pickled red habanero sauce
° Escabeche Sauce

Experience of working with CREA (Testimony)

They had no resources for training, and has been instrumental Create it has helped them in terms of sales and marketing process.

- “It is good that there are these associations that have supported us in free and for us it was a giant step involved in whether our product is good or not in the market” -

Tolosa Sauces Challenges

- “We have many challenges, we are a creative push, company initiative that we take a lot of risks” – Mary

° Log in department stores
° Having larger infrastructure and purchase of machinery.
° Getting an automated machine to produce more

Fuensanta: olives stuffed with almonds, pine, peach, prune, etc.

The objective is to promote olive oil, preventative product for cancer.

-  “If you consume 7 olives daily have not cancer because it cleanses the body, are antioxidants”- Graciela

How did the idea was created?:

Sought to provide a healthy and good for the body to accompany your aperitif.

POR EL BUEN COMER.

Experience of working with CREA (Testimony)

Crea is a well-organized civil association, has prepared and professional people
In a phrase: “good people.”

-“We are far to find good people and when you find someone like that has CREA staff says one grabbed me here and I will not let go”.-

Fuensanta Challenges

• Having financial support to sustain the company before the crisis
• Production that is of excellent quality
• Get more contacts to achieve marketing
• Move the product as possible.
  

“Earlier this spring CREA, a Mexican non-profit based out of Mexico City, invited me down to do some photo documentation for them. CREA works with low income women entrepreneurs to generate employment opportunities in regions of low employment and/or high emigration.

I traveled with a CREA representative to the region of Zacatecas, in the middle of the country, where many of the entrepreneurs are located. Over a 5-day period we met with various women (and a few men) to make portraits of them and photo-document the work that they do. This included potters, salsa makers, brick workers, seamstresses and bead workers.

Following are a series of my favorites from the 5 days of shooting. I’d say the most precious of the series, to me, are those images of the young girls at the end that are showing off the dresses their mothers had made. They got so excited about the shoot–there in this tiny, rural pueblo–and it quickly escalated into their own personal fashion show. Their enthusiasm was so contagious!  :)

I love non-profit work and hope to get to do a lot more in the future!”

We will be updating our website with Nathaniel´s photos this summer, but for a sneak peak, please check out his blogpost on his website here: http://nathanielwilder.com/blog/?p=608

Rita de Luna Calderón of Delicia Jerezana won the Instituto de la Mujer Zacatecana´s state wide personal history competition. We´ve included a translation of her personal history here along with some photos of this exciting event.

Life Story

I was born into a humble and hard-working family. I am the eldest of five brothers and sisters. My parents were born and raised in communities of families poorer than mine – I mention this because my parents didn’t have the opportunity to study, or to have a better quality of life. Theirs was a rural life; they worked very hard and endured hunger, cold, and harsh weather conditions.

Thankfully, my parents thought of us, their children, and didn’t want us to have the same sort of life, so they decided to move to town to give us something better. As my father used to say, so we wouldn’t have to suffer as much as they did.

Even so, as the eldest child, I wasn’t allowed to study – I had to help my mother with housework. I was always enterprising, though, and I am happy to say that since childhood I have done not only the work that was given me but also always looked for something more. I didn’t allow myself to be defeated by the fact that I couldn’t study. I snuck off to school, and my father would come find me and return me home to help my mother. I insisted on studying, though, and because of that I was able to complete fifth grade. Then I grew and was embarrassed, at age 13, to be so much bigger than the other kids and still in elementary school, and I decided to leave that school. At age 15 I finished the elementary school program for adults, and in three months they gave me a certificate. I enrolled in a night school junior high program and finished studies at age 19. I began a technical career study program which I also completed.

At that point I decided to live my own life, since by then my family was provided for: my parents had their own business, house, and were able to give us everything we needed. I knew I was capable, and decided to set out for another city and strive for something – without knowing what.

Doors opened for me, and six months from the day I began working, I was promoted to boss, and worked ten years in that company. I got married and had two children. My husband and I both worked a lot and didn’t have much of a family life together. For that reason I decided to try another alternative and returned to my hometown to work with my parents. Deciding that that work wasn’t what I wanted, I decided to undertake my own business, and that is how I began to make my own products. I started with ‘pinole’, and spread the word among my family members and friends. I saw that they liked it and started to request more, and that there was an opportunity to grow my business. I sought out clients in stores, the town market, and butcher and cheese shops. An important moment for me was an invitation to send pinole to an expo in Mexico City – in one day I sold everything I’d sent, and decided at that moment that that was what I wanted: my own microenterprise, where we could work together as a family and above all, satisfy my own desire to save and revive a traditional food. At that time, almost no one was making pinole and for that reason I liked the idea very much, and I was willing to go wherever the project would take us.

It has not been easy; I have encountered many barriers and difficulties. The first was becoming a widow, and raising three young girls alone. It is not easy to find support – it is sad to say, but one needs to know people to be able to access sources of help. Even so, my business has grown, my daughters now help me, and I generate employment directly as well as indirectly. We created a chain of production that has taken shape thanks to the determination and dedication to move the business ahead.

Over time, we have innovated and introduced new products that have proven successful. Preparation and production of each product is done by hand, with 100% natural ingredients and no preservatives. We consider the needs of people with diabetes and offer a range of products for them.

Our advertising efforts are moving forward. We strive to be more competitive each day and offer the same and better products without, of course, losing our authenticity, tradition and characteristics of our products. I hope to continue to awaken the appetite for my traditional products and introduce them to younger generations. There is still much to be done. I want to continue growing and reviving other traditional products, and extend my reach to the furthest and most isolated areas. There is a lot to do, but I won’t give up.

In my family of women, we don’t need to leave our house and our children to go to work – we can work, and work well, at home, and serve as an example for many women who need to work though their husbands or families don’t allow them to. I would like those women to see us, and feel that they can achieve something and although there are always many stumbling blocks, one can get up and keep going.

I’ve been working for more than ten years at home. I like my work and it has given me so much satisfaction. Thanks to this work I have been able to achieve each goal I have made for myself and I know I will acheive many more because I have the character and will to keep going. I hope my work serves as an example to more women to decide to forge their own lives and create work that gets them and their children ahead, that helps them overcome challenges, feel important and valuable…and above all, helps them feel proud to be women.[/lang_en]

I began, for example, by making 10 to 20 kilos of pinole. Now I make 500 to 600 kilos. I also make pipian by hand in both powder and paste form, horchata, and hand-ground chocolate…all in different packaging and formats, keeping in mind people’s different tastes. I try to make my products affordable to everyone. I am well-established, with a very small workshop, but my products are already being exported to other countries and that motivates me to keep going.

Rita De Luna Calderón