Guatemala. Maria is from a small village in Guatemala. A few years ago she participated in a workshop where she learned how to make cleaning products such as soap, lotions, and many other products. She would make the products in the morning and then in the afternoons she would volunteer in a soup kitchen in her community. However, after a while she realized that there was a lot of competition in the cleaning products industry so she started volunteering in a nearby village to help women learn how to cook. It was through this volunteer experience that she realized that there was a need for a product: a non-stick spray for tortilla pans. She started asking distributors if they offered a class to learn how to make the non stick cooking spray, which some of them did. Once she learned how to make it, she started making it at home and sharing it with her friends and family. They all loved it! Because of how well it turned out, she started selling 500ml bottles to her community but soon realized that because of the poverty that exists in the rural area, many people did not have the money to buy a spray bottle at the price she had chosen.  In order to be able to sell her product, she decided to sell smaller battles at a lower price that was accessible to the people. She sold about a dozen every month. 

Because of the world wide pandemic, the soup kitchen where she volunteered had to close. Her whole family was now at home looking for things to do. They decided to look for classes to take online in order to be productive with their time. Maria looked at a few classes but none of them met her expectations, until she saw our ad on Facebook. She almost immediately started the MBS course and after a while almost decided to stop the course because she realized she does not know how to use technology super well. Her friends, family and action partner encouraged her to keep going and said they were there to support her no matter what. She is now an MBS graduate and has started to sell her products in some of the stores in her community and plans on having it in the surrounding areas as well. Her dream is to have her own company. 

We are very proud of Maria and cannot wait to see her fulfill her dream!