What I Do At Work

So as I have been writing about my experiences and about my work, I thought I should tell a bit about my work and what I do there. The place that I work is a nonprofit fair trade organization called Mercado Global. We work with women artisans that have formed cooperatives to produce fashion-forward jewelry/textiles for US markets. When I say fashion-forward, I refer to fashion that has an end consumer already in mind. With that said, our US designers study trends of the market and work with the artisans to create a product that can be sold to large retail stores. Our most recent orders have been with retail stores as Nordstom, ABC Home, and Levi. By designing out products for such purposes, we are able to provide a market that these Mayan artisans have never had before and we do it on a very large scale. I think this is what sets us apart from other fair trade organizations working with artisans here. We have sales on an unprecedented scale and we are creating a sustainable business for these cooperatives. We make it sustainable by providing business training to the artisans, teaching them skills in finance, accounting, and developing savings programs with the coops. By doing so, we are giving these women the tools to seek out other markets and to understand how to run an effective business. We also work in development in the communities, providing scholarships and improvements in schools through the help of donors and foundations. We most recently provide 5 truckloads to the school to begin building a library, a computer center, and a more secure school. Anyway, I feel like I’m still marketing the organization! Which brings me to what I do at Mercado Global, I assist in the marketing activities. I create enewsletters, blogs, videos, press releases and basically work to portray the impact that Mercado Global has in the communities to donors, foundations, and the potential customers who will purchase upscale jewelry with a cause. I also do some work in sales, mostly cold calling to small retail stores. I enjoy the creation part much more and always enjoy the time of the month when our enewsletter comes out. Being that we are in Guatemala and let’s just say they do things differently down here, I also take on many roles. For instance, I was an electrician this morning splicing together wires in hopes of changing the location of our phone and internet lines. I found it very interesting the handy-work that everyone seems to use to fix things down here. Such as the meter box and the cluster of wires spliced into it with massive quantities of electrical tape. I’m assuming they don’t have much “code” down here…

I really do enjoy my work here most days. Yesterday, I went to a cooperative and conducted my first interview in Spanish with the artisans. It’s a real learning experience every day. Some days the lessons are more obvious than others, but I usually come around to it sooner or later.