15 Job Training for the Poor in Guatemala Mercado Global (“MG”) is succeeding in its mission of helping people help themselves. It supplies education, market access, and the opportunity to escape a level of poverty that none of us can possibly imagine. MG epitomizes HOT’s efforts to leverage its funds and teach people to help themselves. MG gives rural native women in Guatemala, a country where ¾ of the indigenous population lives on under $2 a day and more than ½ live on less than $1.25 per day, the tools and skills to support themselves and their families by training them to be successful artisans and entrepreneurs. MG forms Artisan Co- Ops and arranges sales to international companies such as J Crew and Levi Strauss; where the artisans receive their pay based on their individual production. The co-ops’ “profits from sales” and contributions to MG are used to teach business and financial literacy, nutrition and leadership programs. The women use their increased “wages” which average $12 per day (or six times what ¾ of the indigenous population lives on) to buy shoes, books, school supplies, and nutritious food for their children. Over the last 13 years HOT has made more than 50 grants including (i) paying instructors to teach the women different skill sets in ceramics, sewing and weaving (ii) funding loan programs where the women borrow money to purchase sewing machines and repay their loans with part of the incremental income they receive from the increased production from the machine. Most of these loans have been fully repaid and re-loaned, further leveraging our donor’s gifts, (iii) paying for the ground transportation and supplies for a Case Western Medical Team that taught the Artisan Communities the importance of nutrition, sanitary procedures, clean drinking water, and the basics of 20th and 21st century medicine, and (iv) Emergency Assistance Program used for dire, one-time personal crises. Every grant we have made to MG has had an immediate impact on the artisans and their families. Health, Schoolbooks, and Food – what could be more important??? MG’s current wish list includes: • $2,000 for 2 ($1,000 each) loaded laptops to monitor, evaluate and maximize effects of training sessions • $7,640 for half of the cost of sewing machines and floor looms that will be used to meet the grant requirement of another MG donor who will fund $55,000 in materials and training costs permitting 270 new artisans to each attend 23 full days of training over the next 12 months. MG will either use these machines for a new group next year (if the other donor “re ups”) or to expand the loan program HOT previously financed (see (ii) above)