SBD Program Workshop

January 30th to February 1st, 2008 Cajamarca, Peru

Small Business Development Program Workshop

Since Cajamarca is the capital of Carnaval in Peru we decided to schedule the days prior to Saturday as work days. The first day I worked with some other volunteers on my association´s webpage. Joseph and Cheridyn have previous experience with Dreamweaver and were quite helpful. I think I honestly learned more in the few hours I spent learning from them then I did during the entire conference in Chiclayo. Now that I have a better understanding of Dreamweaver, I should be able to construct the webpage in the next 2 to 3 months.
The Small Business Development Program is trying mold the Peru program into a model program for the entire Peace Corps organization. We have been developing several useful tools for those who come after us. One group is developing a manual that contains several lessons plans for how to teach marketing, group financing and organizational management – all in Spanish. Another group is putting together a project book that includes Volunteer experiences working on various projects. Volunteers include technical expertise and best practices as well as valuable contact information. A third group has been shooting film in volunteers´ sites throughout Peru. The film will be edited into a video that will be used during Training to give the new trainees a feel for Peace Corps life. Although volunteers contribute to all the above tools, each volunteer is part of a particular team. I am on the website team. We have setup a Google Group where volunteers can post on the discussion board, as well as find electronic versions of said manuals. Friday we met as a large group to share our points of progress as well as set deadlines for the completion of the projects. It was a successful two days of work