Day 7: Soggy

Today can best be described as wet. It poured rain all day and, since the prison is open in most areas, it was a soggy day for all. Still, rain or shine we have the classes and today was no different, although there was more huddling as we all tried to keep dry.

Before the class started, I checked in on the manta order and the list of women who will be participating in the order. It was good to see many familiar names (we give preference to women who are in the program) as well as new names. The list is still open for participants, with lots of inquiries, and I imagine by Thursday we have a full list of women who will be working on the order. I also walked by a few women who are embroidering manta for our bags, which is wonderful to see the distribution of work in action!

Also, several of the women showed me they manta they are embroidering. I always laugh when they do this, they want me to review their work, but of course all the manta looks so beautiful! It helps that the women have known me for so long that there is a personal motivation to do well. The embroidery is incredible and the women’s color combos just keep getting better and better. I fell in love with a brilliant orange, red, yellow, blue bird. I cannot wait to open the boxes when they arrive!

Written in Quechua, this translates to “In my heart there is peace and love. I love you.” For the women it means peaces and love are central to all!

In the class the women nearly finished their 15 products. It was fun for everyone to see them come together with the assembly. At this point, all the groups have worked out each other’s roles so the assembly was seamless and consistent. We also worked on pricing as each group received a list of costs associated with their product. Then we worked out how much time each took to make, followed by the hourly wage each person wanted to be paid. In the end, the women agreed on the price that they would sell their products for.

One group agreed on a price and later came up to ask if they could raise it. The women realized that for all the work involved it was just too low. I was really proud of them for coming to this conclusion on their own and speaking up. Part of owning a business is critically thinking about these kinds of decisions and making changes where needed to improve the profitability of the business. Having the ability to speak up and notice when something isn’t work is an important skill!

Thursday will be our last day because the women have a big dance party on Friday for Carnaval. The remaining women will finish on Thursday and their product cards will be revealed (I’m printing them tomorrow). The final step will see the finished product in its packaging and giving out payments for their work.