This week's goals

Despite a mid-week, two-day holiday, we're hoping to make some important progress with the Mercado Artesano this week. Mario, the association's president, has called a meeting of the association for Thursday. We have two goals for the meeting.

1. We need the members of the artisan's association to approve the proposed organizational structure. Currently the association has a president, a board of directors and members. However, tasks have not been delegated to individuals, so very little progress has been made. The president - who was only recently elected - is no longer popular because of the lack of progress. The proposed structure is less top-heavy and has specific responsibilities for the each director and includes seven new positions: three coordinators (one for each type of craft: knits, jewelry and ceramics) and four deputy sales directors (one for each channel: the Mercado in Urubamba, fairs, wholesale and internet). When we met last week with Mario, he was very excited to implement the new structure. Hopefully, he'll be able to help us persuade the other members.

2. Additionally, the deputy mayor of Urubamba assured us that we had his full support and that all he needed before granting funds for design workshops was an agreement (a signed contract) between the artisan's association, the municipality and NeVo. We're drafting the agreement this week and hope to persuade the artisan's association to sign it at the meeting on Thursday.