THE PULSERA PROJECT

The Pulsera Project has three principle goals - employment, education, and impact.

In Central America our goal is to provide Fair Trade employment and economic mobility to marginalized communities throughout Nicaragua & Guatemala.

In the U.S., we seek to use pulsera sales as a vehicle for raising awareness about international poverty, Fair Trade, and global citizenship. Our educational programs instill students with the critical thinking skills necessary in developing new approaches to international development.

We then use the proceeds from pulsera sales to continue empowering our artisan partners and to also fund grants & partnerships with other NGOs, social enterprises, and communities throughout Central America to foster economic & community development.

Our strategy for fulfilling these goals is always a two-sided, integrative approach, reflecting the cross-cultural nature of the project.

In Nicaragua & Guatemala our strategy to meet our employment goals is to nurture positive, transparent, respectful relationships with all of our current artisan partners, while also actively seeking out new artisan partnerships that allow the project to grow and impact more people.

In the U.S. our strategy for expanding our educational program is to promote our project primarily to Spanish teachers and Spanish Clubs, and to deliver them a first-class project that brings meaningful discussion to their classrooms about Latin American culture, Fair Trade, poverty, and global citizenship, while giving them an outlet to support Central American communities through their pulsera sales.

As each of the above components grow in tandem with one another—for example, the more artists we work with, the more schools we have the capacity to work with and vice versa—we are able to raise more money to fund a growing number of social programs for the artists and for other Central American communities.

We have an “impact evaluation" team who investigate and evaluate other NGOs and social programs, looking for high-impact investments where our funds will be most effectively spent. Organizations can apply to us for grants, and after the evaluation process, a vote by our Board of Directors will either approve or deny the request.

We have two highly capable teams of people leading the project with a wealth of experience in all of the fields where we work.

Our team of three employees in the U.S. has been working with teachers and student groups since 2009 and has developed a first-class program that is always evolving based on changes in educational trends and our own observations about how to improve our program. Our U.S. team has skills in graphic & web design, photo & video production, middle school Spanish education, shipping logistics, customer service, inventory management, and more that give us the capacity to effectively expand the U.S. program however we see fit.

Our Nicaraguan team of 8 is similarly effective, bringing a wide range of skills to the table between accounting, social enterprise management, Masters Degrees in impact evaluation, private consulting, first-class education at Managua's premier university, and years of experience working in Nicaragua's artisan markets.

Between these two teams, we have made invaluable connections both in the U.S. and in Central America that allow the project to thrive, grow, and to impact countless lives in the communities we serve.

The two-sided nature of the project means that as the project continues to grow in the U.S. and raise more & more money from pulsera sales, our capacity for effecting change in Central American communities is constantly growing as well.

The things we have accomplished include:

1. Growing our artisan program from a small group of 10 artists in Nicaragua to an expansive network of 200 artisans all throughout Nicaragua and Guatemala.

2. Expanding the U.S. side of the project from a single school pulsera sale to more than 2,500 school communities across all 50 states.

3. Raising more than $4,500,000 through pulsera sales since 2009.

4. Investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in social programs in the fields of education, financial empowerment, environmental sustainability, workers' rights, shelter support, university scholarships, and more.

5. Creating a housing project to assure all artists have a secure shelter for their family. Since 2015, there have been 320 beneficiaries of this program with a total investment of $158,273.