The team of MBA students arrived on a Tuesday. Lolo, Team El Salvador’s steadfast friend (we all have friendship bracelets to prove it), drove me to the airport early morning to welcome the group. The team was tired from their overnight flight, but enthused by the energy of being in El Salvador. For our MBA capstone project, we had been working on a business plan for a newly formed agricultural cooperative, Xinachtli, based in rural El Salvador. The team was beyond ready to meet the founders of Xinachtli- the Mangrove Association and La Coordinadora– and grasp the aha understanding that transpires from being on the ground.
Students from MIIS have worked closely withthe Mangrove Association and La Coordinadora for nearly 10 years through the Team El Salvador (TES) J-term program. One of TES’s primary projects has been to evaluate the numerous services that the Mangrove Association has provided to small-scale farmers and fisherfolk in the region. To improve the financial sustainability of these services and support further economic opportunities in the region, the Mangrove Association has decided to create a separate for-profit cooperative, Xinachtli. The team of MBA students worked this past summer with the founding members of Xinachtli to develop a business plan that would enable the cooperative to support its social mission and assume financially sustainable operations.
We made a couple stops on the way back from the airport- everyone had their first taste of Salvadoran food and Salvadoran Spanish- before throwing them into the life and work of the Lower Lempa. The team’s first meetings with the Mangrove Association and Xinachtli were set for the next morning. We prepared for the meetings as the team adjusted to their new home- they set-up the fans and tested the hammocks, checked out the latrines and glimpsed the organic community garden, I showed them the fridge to keep our stock of chocolate from melting and we worked late into the evening.
This past summer marked my fourth visit to the Lower Lempa. I’d been a team leader of TES J-term projects for the past two years and spent my prior summer continuing work from J-term. During my previous time in the Lower Lempa, I worked with the Mangrove Association to strengthen its community plan for local management of natural resources and develop a network for community-based ecotourism. As they say here, I had drunk the water from the Lempa River: I was hooked. The Mangrove Association’s dedication to fight for community empowerment, environmental sustainability, social justice and intelligent policies to promote economic security compelled me to return: to learn from their expertise and experience and to apply the skills and knowledge I was learning at MIIS.
“Mejorar la calidad de vida para las familias,” or improve the quality of life for families, the founding members of Xinachtli nodded in agreement as they discussed the social mission of the cooperative. The entire MIIS-MBA team was on the ground for about two weeks in total; I was based in the Lower Lempa for the summer. We ultimately created a business plan that we felt would best enable Xinachtli to secure the sustainability of its mission and operations. However, Xinachtli will operate in a dynamic environment, of which we only glimpsed a small part and in which local knowledge and experience will be critical in shaping a viable business plan. Accordingly, the fun part still lies ahead: working alongside the Mangrove Association and Xinachtli to assess the proposed business model and adopt the plan that best suits the conditions under which Xinachtli will grow. I have recently assumed a full-time position in the Lower Lempa and thus look forward to January as an exciting, fruitful month, when a future team of MIIS students will come to bring their wide array of expertise and skills to support the the inspiring work of the Mangrove Association and communities in the region.
Capitalistas rolled off her tongue with a wince and a shake of the head, “We don’t want to be capitalists,” Carmen, the President of the Mangrove Association, informed us at our first meeting. TheMangrove Association is creating the Xinachtli cooperative to support income generation for the rural communities in the Lower Lempa region of El Salvador. The creation of a business is a natural progression of community development, emphasized Don Luis, one of the oldest members of the Mangrove Association. First the communities needed to organize themselves, which they did by creating La Coordinadora, or the Coordinating Body; then they needed to implement community development projects, which they did by creating an NGO, the Mangrove Association; and now, they need employment opportunities, for which they are creating a business: Xinachtli.
It’s a natural progression of community development, not an entrepreneurial opportunity, and surely not a capitalistic endeavor. To the people of the Mangrove Association and La Coordinadora, capitalism is what created the inequalities that caused the civil war; a free-market simply means a market free for those with means to take advantage of those without; and the invisible hand is that of the United States pushing policies to favor large corporations. Yet, they are creating a business. The Mangrove Association recognizes the economic and social value in developing business opportunities and in improving the financial security of the services they have provided to agricultural workers in the region.