Table Colombia Challenge

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UserId

238

Business Name

Fundación Soy Oportunidad

Application Date

08/16/2019

Website

http://www.fundacionsoyoportunidad.org

Location Headquarters

Carrera 49 No. 185-61
Bogotá, Cundinamarca 111166
Colombia
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Legal Status

Incorporated

Core Team Languages

English
Spanish

Contact Name

María del Mar Jaramillo

Email Address

Email hidden; Javascript is required.

Phone Number

+573152564036

Problem: Describe the problem you solve.

Who would give work to a tennager poor woman, without a bachelor's degree and with a baby? We do!!

Thousands of Colombian families living in poverty are not prepared to receive a new child in their homes. Unemployment, lack of sexual planning, teenage pregnancy, among other factors, encourage families to continue growing without control, preventing access to better conditions of life for them in the medium and long term. In Colombia, one of every five mothers is a teenager. We want to change the way mothers generate income while they stay with their children.

Solution: Describe your solution and product road map

We created our program De Mujeres para el Mundo, a series of workshops and theoretical and practical training, where our mothers are the main characters, as they are trained and learn new skills that allow them to generate income for their families from home, without leaving their children alone. In this way we preserve this valuable time of love and company between mothers and children, while reinventing the way they generate income for their families. These women begin as beneficiaries of our foundation through workshops and trainings. We teach them new skills that allow them start a new business while continuing to care for their children. It has already been seen in multiple studies that reduce inequality and create greater opportunities for women, can help to reduce the risk of occurrence of teenage pregnancy and mitigate their respective effects. RECOGNITION: With the help of hospitals and health care centers in Bogotá, we recognize the basic needs of the most vulnerable families, especially in teenage mothers in situations of vulnerability. We start with a sensitization workshop to invite all expectant mothers to be part of the program. LINKAGE: We solve an urgent need (short term) by delivering our cribs for their babies. Mothers receive training in life projection and Entrepreneurship in different trades to choose the one that best suits their likes and skills. PROJECTION: We accompany families to start an independent business model and to improve their living conditions for a year, in order to follow up and support their individual process. We teach them about basic finances, business development, marketing, among others. If these women finish our program, they can get a kit to start their business at the end. So far we have been working with 2 mothers. One of them works with jewerly and the other one with clothing manufacture. We will continue this project in Bogotá. This will help young mothers to start working while they take care of their children.

Market opportunity: Describe the opportunity. Include global market size, trends and risks.

We are still a small foundation. We have been working on our projects for 3 years, but this is perhaps the project that has generated the most impact in our lives as well as our beneficiaries. We have counted on the help of donations but we need to get a bigger push that allows us to consolidate our program of a complete training. The main need arises in the day to day of our mothers. The workshops are donated by companies and foundations allied to our organization, however, we must provide raw materials, material to work, transportation for mothers, stationery, snacks and advertising, among other things. Although donations from natural persons help us a lot, they are not enough since every day we receive more women who want to start a different project, which requires materials, displacements, activities, refreshments, uniforms, among others. Undoubtedly, this project is vital for thousands of women who, being teenagers, are also mothers. They need an opportunity to be able to work and get ahead with their children.

For this reason, the real opportunity is for our economy. If we provide trained women to new businesses, individual clients and companies wouldn't need to hire and train a person to do a specific job. This women, from home, will be able to do it.

In our case, for example, we are already working with companies dedicated to marketing and branding. They no longer need to hire people who are responsible for making their products. Now they have women who have a machine in their homes and can work and deliver their orders according to the deadline agreed between both parties. In our bakery and pastry course, restaurants make orders to our mothers and they from home, with the necessary tools and knowledge learned, can do what is necessary without having to move from their home or leave their children alone or in the care of A stranger. This certainly benefits the whole family, as well as customers and businesses. Our mothers learn to manage and offer their products through the internet, which allows them to be more competitive in the market.

Competitive Advantages: Describe your top competitors in Colombia and globally. Remember that there are direct and indirect competitors, so include both if relevant. Enumerate and explain your main competitive advantages. Include IP protection.

In Colombia, there are a large number of organizations that work with mothers. From the public sector there are entities dedicated to this population, private foundations, and civil organizations. However, the entities have dedicated themselves to donating items that may be necessary for these families. Very few organizations are dedicated to educating and educating women so that they themselves can move forward on their own. However, there are entities that also work with our chosen population, but the level of poverty in Colombia is so high, that they do not reach to receive all these people in need. Our competitive advantage is that a minimum investment is required from the organizations that provide their service and time to train our mothers. In any case, their benefit is very high, as they improve their image with customers, suppliers, engage their workers, improve their skills, and even receive tax benefits for their contribution to our project. In the same way, we bring qualified women to the economy, with a different mental scheme and with an indescribable force to work for what they know they deserve to receive. Our women will create new businesses, create new jobs, can employ new people, move and improve the economy of their community and therefore, the economy of their city and even their country.

We have experts who have worked with vulnerable populations, our communication with them is direct and permanent. We know their environment, their families, needs and concerns, so work becomes a much simpler task. We work with people who really want to commit to their future and their family.

Market fit: Describe how much your solution has been validated by potential customers and provide references that have tried or reviewed your solution.

We have already started with 2 companies in Colombia. One of them is a marketing and branching company for large stores. This company contacted us to work with the clothing team we created with our first beneficiary mothers. Each of them received the training and today they can work from home, sewing ecological bags for this company. It is important to highlight that once our mothers finish the course, the foundation gives them the essential tools to start their own business. It is not a gift. It is a commitment that these tools acquire to pay for such a period, since nothing is valued more than what is earned through work and effort.

We know that our work is successful, if our mothers start to make their own products and get customers for it. We know that we have been successful because companies are looking for us to hire our beneficiaries, because they trust their skills and the training program we have created for them.

This year we were beneficiaries of a financing program of a company located in USA, to create the first clothing program with 5 women beneficiaries. Nowadays they can already generate income from their home, offer their services and receive orders from customers who need their products. This company saw our job and they wanted to get involve with us in this project.

We have been beneficiaries of acceleration and training programs granted by large financial institutions in Colombia. We have alliances with companies that donate their time and their establishments to teach the workshops and train our entrepreneurial mothers.

Strategy and plans: Explain your business model and go-to-market strategy. Include partnerships you are considering and your key performance indicators.

Our business model is based on creating alliances that finance our work, both nationally and internationally. Companies that donate their time may also be beneficiaries of having skilled labor to carry out activities of their corporate purpose, without generating extra expenses.

The market needs people with professional training, who can do their job in better conditions.

We work to achieve the goals of the Sustainable Development Goals. Therefore, we know that there are international entities that seek to work with organizations that cooperate to meet these goals. Likewise, companies are increasingly interested in creating social responsibility programs where their entire value chain is benefited in any way. Therefore, we know that they hire organizations such as ours to strengthen their relationships with their stakeholders and, in turn, obtain a much more favorable image in front of their clients.

We have already created alliances with companies that are dedicated to marketing, confectionery, beauty apps, restaurants, among others, that allow us to expand job opportunities for our beneficiaries

Team: Describe your main team and ownership. Include brief bio of team members.

I'm María del Mar, I'm 27 years old, I'm a lawyer, Soy Oportunidad's CEO and I'm the mother of a 9-year-old boy. I became a mother when I was 18. Of course, he is the main reason of this project.

Nicolás González is a publicist. Matías's father and he works with our marketing.

Brenda Forero is a lawyer, magister in human rights. She works in our legal area.

There isn't a ownership because we are a non profit. However we all work with our heart in this organization.

Financials and Capital needs: Provide 3 years projections. Describe main milestones to be reached.

We are currently 3 people working full time on the project. Two of them are volunteers who are doing university internships with our foundation. Likewise, we have the support of organizations and companies that donate their time to teach our mothers. Our professors in accounting and marketing are also volunteers. We have the support of the American company Talk Abroad, which supports us with a small financing that allows us to train 5 mothers in Bogota, as well as our donors and volunteers who, with small works, help us to continue supporting the entrepreneurship of our mothers. We will start working with Corporación Mundial de la Mujer, a great colombian organization who can provide jobs for our mothers if they finish the program succesfully.

We will be able to measure our results for a year, since we will be periodically monitoring the work of our mothers once they finish the program that has an approximate duration between 4 and 6 months. We will evaluate that they continue working in their businesses, that they have growth according to where they live and the type of business they choose to develop. We will support them by promoting their services and products through our social networks, assistance to fairs and social events, communication to suppliers, donors, influencers, among others.

We expect to work with companies, international organizations and governments that support and finance our project. If we can prove that we fulfill and create positive results for our mothers, we will be able to get more organizations to join this project that changes the lives of young mothers in Colombia. We already started wih Talk Abroad. This company believed in us and in our project and they will help us to start a new project with 5 mothers, Hopefully we will find more companies like them!

- Mobilization of beneficiaries and team 6 months: We need to provide transportation (they pay one of the buses they use to get to our training, but we pay the other one). This will happen with almost 10 mothers for 4-6 months.
- Final kit for mothers. Wwe want to provide a small kit to help them start their business with something to start working. Each of them will receive it only once, when they finish the program.
-Materials for training. Organizations help us with training but we need to provide materials for their learning.
- Study material as notebooks, readings, etc. We give notebooks, pens, reading material, copies, to improve what they already learned in classes.
- Staff uniforms and promotional elements. Everything needs to be registered with the names of companies who helped us during the traning. Our work is very institutional.

In 3 years we hope to support the growth of 200 women annually, generating an annual income of USD $600.000 per year.

We want to have our own training center, trained teachers, a care center for the children of our beneficiaries, create an investment fund for our beneficiaries, among others

Do you believe your business has an impact on your community? If so, how? This could mean an impact on your employees and their families, the people receiving your services, or the city/region overall by providing a service for the environment, health, or resilience, for example

The most effective strategy to sustain any project is SHOWING RESULTS! Our results will show that teenage mothers can work and they can take care of their children at the same time. Our results will allow us to unify companies and people to get better services and products.

We have already started our program with 5 women who will learn about clothing. At the end of the course they will have the basic notions about sewing lingerie for home. They will also learn about accounting, marketing and a psychologist will be with them throughout the process. When they finish the program, they will receive a sewing machine to start their business from home. We will even promote their products with our donors and suppliers to help them increase their market.

EntrepreneurId

359

ProjectName

Fundación Soy Oportunidad

Status

Enviada a los examinadores