Robyn and I take off Sunday morning. We will spend two weeks working at a fair trade, organic clothing cooperative in Nueva Vida, Ciudad Sandino (Managua), Nicaragua. A group of women started the business after Hurricane Mitch destroyed the city in 1998. They began from ground zero - they had no money, no materials, and didn't know how to use industrial sewing machines. The women purchased equipment, learned to sew, and even began harvesting their own organic cotton to use in their products. They used the natural disaster as a chance to learn and create a new future for themselves, their families, and their community. The co-op now serves customers internationally but is still struggling to grow. Click here to visit the co-op's current website.
Over the semester, Robyn and I developed some ideas for the co-op to improve its current business practices, designed new marketing materials, and did a market survey to find out how the co-op could meet the needs of potential customers and distributors in the US. We hope our ideas will help the co-op members expand the business!
*If you learn from defeat, you haven't really lost*
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