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How Pro Mujer is Uplifting Women in Latin America

Pro MujerWomen in Latin America face heavy gender inequality as a whole. Across multiple statistics, women are consistently disadvantaged in Latin American countries. For instance, a wage gap: in many countries, women are on average spending more time working per week without pay than men. In Mexico, women on average spend 53.9 hours per week without pay and 20.5 hours per week with pay. On the other hand, men spend 19.4 hours per week without pay and 44.9 hours per week with pay. In this case, women are working for more time, and being compensated less. In some other Latin America countries, such as Argentina, only 11.1 percent of elected officials are women. Therefore, legislation in favor of improving conditions for women is more difficult. Pro Mujer seeks to help with these problems.

Expanding Influence

Pro Mujer is an organization that works closely with women directly in countries like Argentina and Mexico, as well as in Bolivia, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru. This organization, established in Bolivia in 1990, is still expanding to include work in more countries. As of late 2018, they have expanded this work into Guatemala, furthering their impact throughout Latin America. In the last three decades, Pro Mujer has been providing tools to assist women directly in countries facing discrimination and inequality.

The work of Pro Mujer focuses strongly on both long-term and short-term assistance, and mostly in the financial area. Pro Mujer will provide loans, offer financial literacy education and business education. By doing so, the nonprofit organization will break negative cycles that contribute to poverty. This ensures a stronger path to dismantling inequality further down the line. Pro Mujer has also expanded into providing health care for women in Latin America, as well as services such as counseling and cervical cancer screenings.

Sustainable Impacts

Pro Mujer has a record for uplifting those women who work within the organization itself. About 66 percent of staff are women, and 15 percent of staff are in fact former clients who were being assisted by the organization, providing jobs for many women in need in Latin American countries. Since 1990, Pro Mujer has disbursed approximately $3.6 billion in small loans to women. In 2018, the country helped 300,000 women and provided health services 762,000 times. They’ve also recently expanded to provide digital literacy courses, assist with entrepreneurship ventures and combat gender-based violence.

Organizations with such a massive reach as Pro Mujer are seeking to help provide direct assistance to women facing discrimination and injustice. According to the World Bank, while education opportunities in Latin America are high, women often do not have access to the same quality of education as men. Lack of sexual education also leads to higher rates of teenage pregnancy and an average of 135 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Providing services to increase education will assist women on the whole over time. With the help of ambitious and successful organizations like Pro Mujer, the situation may be looking up for women in Latin America.

– Jade Follette
Photo: Flickr

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How Female Entrepreneurs in Latin America Are Improving Lives

Female Entrepreneurs in Latin AmericaThe entrepreneurial spirit is catching in South America. According to the World Bank, 63 percent of Latin Americans believe they have what it takes to start a successful business. Meanwhile, local governments are offering support to local entrepreneurs. In Chile, the environment is so strong for startups that it has been dubbed “Chilecon Valley.”

Despite this, there is still widespread poverty in the region. An estimated 25 percent of the population lives below the poverty line of $4 a day. The situation is even worse for women, as only 53 percent participate in the labor force. Fortunately, three women are aiming to change that by helping their local communities and being role models for prospective female entrepreneurs in Latin America.

Leila Velez

Leila Velez is a Brazilian entrepreneur who is aiming to bring the efficiency of waste management in the fast food industry to beauty salons. She started her business, Beleza Natural, at 19 years old with the hope of bringing the accessibility of places like McDonald’s to the beauty industry. Now, her company has locations all over Brazil and employs 3,000 people, many of whom Velez says are single mothers in their early 20s.

While Velez may have modeled aspects of her salons after fast food, she did not want them to become another low paying job people take on temporarily. She wanted to provide career opportunities that give her employees sustainability in life. She says working at her salon is the first job of 90 percent of her employees and she wants her company to offer the opportunity to build a career rather than be a temporary stop.

Jimena Flórez

When Jimena Flórez began her initiative to educate rural farmers about sustainability, she had no idea it would lead to an international snack food company. Chaak Healthy Snacks, originally called Crispy Fruits, works closely with local Colombian farmers to provide healthy snack foods like low sugar brownies to 90,000 kids per month.

Flórez’s company started out trying to help out local Colombian farmers by helping them use organic techniques she learned from relatives in Germany. When she visited her family’s German brewery after college, she knew she could bring the information back to help Columbians. This led to a dry fruit company that later rebranded to healthy snack foods to appeal to an international audience.

In 2015, former President Barack Obama invited Florez to attend a Global Entrepreneurship Event where he thanked her for “helping to lift up his community.” As one of six young entrepreneurs invited, Florez is primed to expand and continue to provide healthy snacks all over the world as one of the many rising female entrepreneurs in Latin America.

Marian Villa Roldán

Being a female entrepreneur is difficult anywhere, but in Latin America, where a certain level of masculinity called “machismo” is integral to the culture, it is more difficult. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean found that 40 percent of Latin American women have been on the receiving end of violence in their lives. This negative attitude toward femininity goes all the way to the top, where only 17 percent of executive positions are held by women.

Marian Villa Roldan and her company Eversocial are out to change that. Eversocial, an online marketing and design company, has supported numerous initiatives that empower Latin American women, including PionerasDev, which helps teach young women how to code. Eversocial has also supported Geek Girls LatAm, a similar organization that helps Latin American women get into STEM fields.

Success for Female Entrepreneurs in Latin America

Latin American women pursuing careers in entrepreneurship are succeeding in a tough environment, but they do not let that stop them from giving back to their communities. Whether it be through providing employment, offering a helpful product, or supporting noble causes, these women fight poverty and serve as role models for the next generation of female entrepreneurs in Latin America.

– Jonathon Ayers
Photo: Flickr