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The Interdisciplinary Integral Development Program (PRODII) commemorates Women’s Day as a day in which the spaces of intervention where women have a voice continue to increase. Women full of tenacity and stories to tell, as is the case of Doña Noemy, a woman who every day puts into practice her knowledge and training to develop and advance.
Dedication, discipline, commitment, and perseverance: these are words that can describe Noemy Portillo Condori, a 51 year old woman, born in the community of Huancarani in the Municipality of Pocoata in the North of Potosi, Bolivia. She is a member of the Pocoata Dairy Products Association (APROLAP) and together with her husband Pastor Tarqui Fernández, 55 years old, and their four children, they started producing milk, yogurt and cheese with one cow and now they have fourteen. She learned to make yogurt, bought some textbooks to learn more, and the community gave her a scholarship to study in Uncía as an agriculturalist, where she finished her degree and has always put into practice what she has been taught. She says that there were thirty students studying her career and she was the only one who dedicated herself to entrepreneurship.
Doña Noemy tells us that the desire to work, and to be independent and enterprising has always called her attention and that is why she has been part of these associations since the beginning of the formation in 2007 of the Association of Fruit Growers and its derivatives of the Municipality of Pocoata (AFRUDEMPO) where she is currently responsible for the preparation of cookies and is on the board as secretary of marketing, and since 2015 in APROLAP where she is as president of the dairy association. She tells us that “all are healthy organic products, without preservatives or colorants for good nutrition”. She also indicates that the biggest challenges are found in climate changes “natural phenomena have affected crops and in the last two years we have not been able to see hardly any peaches. Due to hailstorms and frosts, most of the crops have been lost.”
AFRUDEMPO started with peach orchards, making several products. Later, they saw the possibility of creating a corn factory and from there the corn cookie product was born, thus managing, with support, to enter schools to provide school breakfast. Starting in 2015 and thanks to PRODII’s support, they increased their machinery, improved their workspace, and created a sanitary registration to meet the standards of the National Agricultural Health and Food Safety Service (SENASAG). They now have a license until 2025 to continue providing school breakfast, and they produce 120,000 rations per year.
There are about 6 associations in the Pocoata Municipality, which is why they are more organized. She comments, “We make corn cookies, other associations have api, tojorí, and wheat flakes, among others. Together with the authorities of the municipality, we work according to Law No. 622, dated December 31, 2014, which aims to ensure complementary school meals in the educational units of the Plurinational educational system, with food from local sources according to the framework of comprehensive development for Living Well. PRODII has trained them on fruit crops: how to plant, how to deal with diseases and pests, and how to prepare fertilizers, insecticides and organic fungicides.
All of the training has motivated the women who work in the project to continue, because at the beginning they have invested and now they see the results of their effort, commitment and perseverance, so they have been able to earn more income for the family, for their children’s studies, to help their husbands and improve the family economy. They become more independent, putting into practice their entrepreneurship and empowerment every day.
Doña Noemy has also been part of the Intercultural Economic Productive Leadership Training School (EFLEPI), to be a leader and promoter of these products, and has managed to market in national fairs in Cochabamba, Sucre and Oruro. She has been part of different events, fairs and exchanges of experiences, participating as a special guest because of the recognition she already has.
She likes to be active and for this reason she has also been part of the Bartolinas in Pocoata. “The ‘double discrimination’ that we suffer for being women and for being peasant and indigenous women in our families, communities, organizations and society as a whole, has driven us to fight against the violation of our fundamental rights and to defend our full and equal participation in decision making.” https://www.bartolinasisa.org/quienes-somos/
She also likes to help and teach other women. She always says that it is good to be independent and to be an entrepreneur, and that what she was taught to invest and then have, she teaches to other women “First you invest and then come the results,” she says. Her goals and dreams have been fulfilled thanks to her tenacity and the discipline of constantly training herself.
PRODII and the technician Edwin Flores are currently supporting the children of the participants in associations, thus creating an association of young producers. They have also been given training courses in basic accounting so that they can manage their own money and know how to buy supplies and maintain the machines.
Doña Noemy’s message to other women is “that they should always be interested in training, in being entrepreneurs. As women we must strengthen ourselves and move forward, not just stay in the kitchen, but work and demonstrate the skills we have to develop as women and earn our own income. Currently we have many benefits and few of us are taking advantage of them. We should not be afraid, we have to make ourselves known and show that we are capable of getting ahead and bettering ourselves, without fear to go out and face society, go ahead, and take advantage of what the institutions are offering to train ourselves and develop our potentials”.
She shared with us that her dream is to have a large company and to be recognized as the best producers in the municipality of Pocoata.
Catalina Ospina is a participant in the Seed program in Bolivia. She is a community development worker with MCC partner PRODII based in Llallagua, Norte de Potosi.