By Federico de Galvagni | Project Leader
With this report we strive to provide our donors with updated information concerning developments within our program “Emprende” with a special focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 had a considerable impact on us as an institution and the vulnerable families we are working with. Due to the measures taken by the Argentine government as a response to the crisis (a strict quarantine since March 20th), our female entrepreneurs were required to adapt their businesses to these new, limited circumstances. Here we will mention some of the actions taken by our organization in order to offer the best support possible to our beneficiaries in these difficult times.
Despite the complicated context, we were able to renew six loans for female entrepreneurs affiliated with Mujeres 2000, distributing a total of ARS 60,900 (870 USD).
With respect to our workshops on business related topics, we realized six individual sessions of counselling, consisting in four weekly sessions about topics such as digital marketing and social media content. We are working very hard to create new workshops that are based on the input of our volunteers and their individual knowledge. Furthermore, we are working with corporate partners such as Google. Thanks to a generous offer from Google, more than 20 interested entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to upload their businesses to Google My Business.Among other benefits, this will allow their businesses to appear on Google Maps.
Since we are now depending on virtual meetings to continue our business management courses, we reassessed former content and updated it to work better in this new paradigm. In total, 13 new female entrepreneurs began our workshop and graduated, and more than 20 women are registered in the waiting list for the new course starting in July. The five course modules have been distributed among five volunteers.
Lastly, we are very happy to announce that we are in the initial phase of developing an app for Mujeres 2000 that will enable more efficient registration of loan fee payments from our beneficiaries, replacing the former paper-based process.
The current financial challenge due to the quarantine required a reconsideration of the income source of the female entrepreneurs we support. Once again, this group of exceptional women has proved its innovative and entrepreneurial spirit and initiated the production of facial masks to help fight the spread of COVID-19. We received generous donations of cloth which was distributed to 25 of our entrepreneurs.
We are – especially at this critical moment - enormously grateful for your support as a donor. Your trust in our initiatives is an important source of motivation to overcome the current challenges. Thank you for your support!
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