What I will be doing

So we´ve passed our halfway point, and our class now has a much better idea of what we will be doing. With the rural economic development (RED) program, we will have our primary goal of working with cooperatives. These cooperatives can make anything from yogurt to bananas, and clothing to savings and loans services. We help them in a variety of ways be it, helping them with their books, comply with coop regulations, liase between them and other coops or organizations, and helping them design and execute projects, whether it is helping a strawberry coop start a jam service or a coop that gives loans with starting a program for savings. We also have secondary projects that we are encouraged to take on. These include income generating projects like apiculture (beekeeping), pisciculture (fish ponds), adding new products, or microfinance. They can also be for the community, like working with youth or women´s groups, assisting small businesses with project design, feasability studies, marketing and other things. The nice thing about the RED program is that our training is very broad and we have the potential to take on many projects. Although they do keep us very busy with training as a result. Hopefully I will start making funny posts soon, and there are also pictures to come once I get a faster internet connection.