The idea of creating Debuenafe arose in 1999, when María de la Luz Larraín, winner of the 2016 Impact Woman Award, traveled with a group of friends to the IX region and was moved to see the poverty of its people and, above all, the reality of many women who had to leave their children alone to be able to go out to work.
María de la Luz or “Uca” as everyone who knows her calls her, always felt that somehow she had to “give back her hand to life” and thought that this was the right opportunity to find a way to help these women rural areas, many very far away.
As she went through the towns, she became aware of the great ability of Chilean women to perform manual trades as part of their culture. Most grew up watching their relatives weave looms, which, due to their large size, were assembled outside their homes and only during the summer.
Her idea was that these women could undertake from their own home and thus combine their work with motherhood. To do this, it was necessary to start by holding workshops to weave throughout the year, provide microcredits, carry out training to follow the requested designs with their measurements, perfect the finishes, calculate the costs of each product and finally ensure that the delivery was within a certain period. .
Everything was put in order quickly on paper, but ideally it had to be financed without borrowing money. If the idea was to promote entrepreneurship, “we had to set an example and finance ourselves with our own business”, so “Uca” came up with the idea of asking for everything that people do not use, do not need or do not like, but that It is in good condition, so that someone else can use it.
Visiting the houses of friends and some factories that had withdrawn their products, they began to make their first sales, with which they financed the four initial microcredits out of a total of 4,500 obtained in the Araucanía region alone.
A year later, they moved into a borrowed space with more than 30 volunteers who help classify, order and sell the donations. It was a long journey until today that they have a store in Los Cobres de Vitacura (C9) and the central one in Comandante Malbec 13550, Lo Barnechea, where you can find everything: books, shoes, furniture, kitchenware, clothes, toys and much more. plus.
Both locations receive donations, are classified and sold. Its funds are destined to finance good faith projects, the main one being: Cordillerana, the non-profit store, located in Pueblito de Los Dominicos, premises 24 and 31. “More than 190 entrepreneurs from Arica, Parinacota, Los Lagos, Araucanía , Chiloé, among other locations, have been trained and sell their products in Cordillerana”.
Thanks to this initiative, it has been possible to promote entrepreneurship among women in rural regions and communities in Chile, through microcredit programs, advice, training, and textile reuse and recycling projects.
For debuenafe to continue promoting people in poverty in the north and south of Chile, donations are essential, but not everything that is received as a donation can be sold. Maria de la Luz states that there are a lot of clothes in poor condition that are not suitable for sale and they have to manage so that they do not end up in landfills. “It is important to make the difference between donating and throwing away. Donating is an act of generosity thinking that someone else can be more useful than you, unfortunately of the clothes we receive, only 30% are in good condition.
*If you want to be part of this chain of entrepreneurship by donating clothes, decorations, furniture, kitchen items, etc., that are in good condition, you can enter debuenafe.cl.
–
