Our partner in Nicaragua, Casas de la Esperanza, held another Barefoot MBA class last night. Amy-Ruth writes:

The group used lots of local examples which was great and captured everyones interest. Things like the cost of producing ‘fresco’, of making a pair of ‘pantalones’, creating ‘anillos’ and selling mobile phone top-ups. Having a good activity is key to everyone learning and enjoying themselves.

As we are going on further everyone is coming out of their shells a lot more, feeling comfortable with each other and with us too. One of the real benefits that we could see is that the members of the class will feel comfortable to ask the other members, in the future, for business help or advice.

We have also found that the more active we can keep everyone, the better. Nicaraguans are very expressive people and, although the group isn’t great with understanding the numbers side of business they love to act out situations. In the class we try and incorporate the hard figures of business while also adding a big element of activity and team work.

Note the children in the background of the photo below. As Amy-Ruth says, “here you can’t have a class without the kids coming too!” We look forward to more updates soon.