leticia mariana jauregui casanueva

I founded Crea in 2008 (www.crea.org.mx). It’s a nonprofit social enterprise that trains & advises low-income women micro and small entrepreneurs in marginalised communities to strengthen & grow their businesses. To date, Crea has benefitting close to 65,000 people, and counting.

In 2014, Crea launched a public-private partnership with the National Institute for Entrepreneurs of Mexico called Mujeres Moviendo México (www.mmm.org.mx) that is working with over 10,000 women entrepreneurs from 5 states in Mexico, providing them with advising, training and consulting.

Crea comes from the spanish words creer ("to believe") and crear ("to create"). It means believing in what one creates, in the abilities of women, in their potential and in the country. It means creating opportunities and businesses. We believe in women who create and believe in Mexico.

This is part of the TamalKua team (http://zonetamalli.com.mx/) that recently got showcased at the 2015 National Week of Entrepreneurs. Patricia, the CEO, got to present in front of the President during the keynote event.

A short video (in Spanish, #sorrynotsorry) about Crea's newest project: Cursos Crea

Here I am with Ofelia (far left), our Director of Training Methodologies, and Martha, one of the first women to sign up for our digital skills pilot program.

We've recently launched cursos.crea.org.mx in order to close the knowledge gap that women face in terms of the use of Internet and digital tools. We're fortunate to have a large grant from Google to do this and we've partnered with the Ministry of Telecommunications to offer our trainings to women all around the country through their Puntos Mexico Conectado (http://www.pmc.gob.mx/)

These men and women formed a sewing cooperative in Santiaguillo, a town in Zacatecas, in North Central Mexico. They wanted to set up a business that can generate jobs and better livelihoods for their families and community and through Crea we provided them with business skills and consulting services that allowed them to open a formal sewing cooperative.  

When we started working in La Luz, the community was looking to set up local businesses to provide employment. Through a regional demand analysis we identified there was a market opportunity for a cinder block production and helped them set up a businesses while teaching them business skills.

El Pardillo II didn't have any businesses doing repairs, so they decided to create a microenterprise to carry out all sorts of repairs and alterations at competitive prices.

These ladies are celebrating: Their first contract and production line is ready!