Education to empower girls and women

For the last months we focused on evaluating and improving our program. We recruited a team of volunteers to carry out a thorough assessment of the ways in which Cocinando Sueños has improved the lives of our students and alum. The team carried-out in person interviews as well as well as various group activities to further understand specifically which topics, skills and toolkits have allowed women to sustain and grow their small food businesses. Our team compared and contrasted the results of this evaluation with the pre-program, during and post-program self-reporting surveys we had previously administered. We identified, women benefited the most from the program components focusing on exploring, connecting and letting go of their true voices, as well as their Ikigai’s. Furthermore, students and alums increased their sales as a result of product innovation. Also, thanks to the realignment of their Ikigai with the innovation insights they came up with, women were able to renew the design concept behind their businesses, growing their market size. Most importantly, from our program evaluation and its thorough analysis we learned our students became empowered and were able to advance in the pursuit of their dreams by learning to commit and carry-out small actionable steps and milestones. Last but not least, this evaluation confirmed our hypothesis that any underserved small entrepreneurial woman independent of the sector would greatly benefit from our program.

As a result of the evaluation and our in-house analysis, our team worked on making the necessary adjustments to enhance our program. We now have a newly enhanced curriculum and methodology, taking underserved women food entrepreneurs on a journey of connecting with their true-selves, their dreams and ambitions and most importantly connecting them with deeply understanding the needs of their customers to offer innovative concepts, products and services, increasing their sales and ultimately their profits. Also, we have decided to broaden the reach of our program to offer it to all women entrepreneurs in the need of building on and leveraging their inner selves, as well as learning to better understand their clients’ needs and be inspired by them to enhance their ventures and grow.

With this enhanced program we are very happy to be in the process of finding further support from entrepreneurial and women divisions within Comfama (our main partner), as well as venturing into launching cross-subsidized and inclusive weekend retreats on social media. We very much look forward to continuing to receive your generous donations as support such that we can further our impact, by increasing the number of scholarships and financial aid spots in our program, and ultimately continue to serve those head of household single women and their families who need it the most.

For the last couple of months we decided to go back to on-line programs. From our in-person program evaluations, together with further conversational interviews we had with prospective students, we learned the majority of our students prefer on-line education, as it allows them to fulfill their multiple responsibilities as entrepreneurs, mothers and with their day jobs. We also learned; women highly benefit from coaching. We have noticed coaching has allowed women to incorporate their recently acquired skills as entrepreneurs into their ventures.

Our focus has been on coaching women to learn how to train their minds. Our partnership with Comfama, has provided us with additional funding to hired an amazing life and executive coach specialized in guiding entrepreneurial women to make their dreams a reality as they accomplish their goals.

As part of this process two cohorts of woman food entrepreneurs have successfully finalized our recently launched renewed intensive online Cocinando Sueños course and coaching program. Women have launched and or renovated their product, and most importantly duplicated their sales. Our students, have reported to have undergone a personal and professional transformation, as well as their ventures as the program has provided them with the skills and tool-kits, and most importantly it has allowed them to challenge their once limited mindsets and propel their entrepreneurial minds.

As we reach the end of 2022 we continue to be very grateful for all the support and hard work of our team, our donors, partners, sponsors and volunteers. This support as allowed us to improve our program in terms of content, delivery, professors and coaches, such that it best addresses the needs of entrepreneurial Colombian women in need in the food industry, increasing their income, improving their quality of life and that of their families.

As we approach Giving Tuesday, we continue to very much welcome your generous donations as support such that we can further our impact, by increasing the number of scholarships and financial aid spots.