Gabriela Enrigue and Leticia Jáuregui

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2008

Gabriela Enrigue and Leticia Jáuregui

CREA

Zacatecas, Mexico

Community Improvement & Economic Development

The Bold Idea:

Developing an integrated method for channeling remittances to income-generating projects for impoverished women entrepreneurs in Mexico.

Migrant remittances help alleviate some of the immediate symptoms of poverty, but they are not a permanent solution. They seldom succeed in creating opportunities that have a lasting effect on poverty. In 2007, Mexico received $25 billion in remittances, and yet more than forty million people continue to live on less than $2 a day. The challenge is to break the cycle where the survival of those left behind depends on migrant remittances, and instead create development opportunities within communities, so that migration ceases to be the only option for the next generation.

CREA is developing an integrated method for channeling remittances to income-generating projects, eschewing traditional subsidies and cash handouts. By providing training and mentorship to women entrepreneurs in high-migration communities, CREA helps them scale-up their businesses and improve production processes, while developing better distribution channels to reach larger markets. Participating women entrepreneurs acquire new skills, build self-esteem, and forge closer partnerships with migrants, generating local income and employment.

Gabriela Enrigue and Leticia Jauregui pitching at Echoing Green Selection Weekend (May 2, 2008)

Biography:

Gabriela Enrigue holds a Masters in Public Policy from UC Berkeley. Leticia Jáuregui holds an MS in Community Development and an MS in Agricultural and Resource Economics from UC Davis. Both women attended college in Mexico, where they witnessed the gap between rich and poor firsthand, through experiences in rural Zacatecas and the Mexican Supreme Court.

Moment of Obligation: What experiences led to the desire to start your own organization?

Leticia’s work in high-migration communities in Zacatecas and Gabriela’s work at the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice and with the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction in the Philippines opened our eyes to the inequities and injustices prevalent in Mexico and the world. This motivated us to act and apply our knowledge, energy and experience to effect change in the lives of women micro-entrepreneurs. We realized that in order to do this, we needed to think outside the box and needed more flexibility than what other established institutions or organizations allowed; thus, we embarked on the adventure to create CREA.

Gall to Think Big: What has given you the ability to dream big and take on deeply entrenched social and difficult problems? (Such as experiences, skills, events, etc.)
Growing up, we have both seen our parents work as hard as they can to provide for their families and give back to society. They taught us to always dream big and inspired both of us to work hard to solve the pressing social problems of our country. Additionally, we have encountered great social entrepreneurs and leaders who keep inspiring us to translate our passion into action, advise us, and guide us through the ups and downs. Most of all, what gives us the ability to dream big is our partnership: we have learned together, grown together and we push each other to do better and achieve great things.

New and Untested: What's innovative about your new idea for social change?
Our innovative idea for social change is to build local economies, opportunities, and employment by tackling the causes of migration and not migration per se. CREA will work with women entrepreneurs and help them scale their production and create better distribution channels by helping them build business connections and introducing them to new business opportunities. Through CREA, women transformed into successful entrepreneurs will believe in themselves, believe in their futures, believe in a better life for their children, and believe in a more vibrant community. By linking the creativity and resources of migrants and women entrepreneurs, there will be employment and opportunities other than migration.

Seeing Possibilities: What are the most important qualities to be a successful social entrepreneur?
We both believe that the most important qualities to be a successful social entrepreneur are passion, commitment, creativity, and boldness. We are inspired everyday by the stories of other social entrepreneurs and the women we work with. They teach us every day how to turn fear into drive and problems into opportunities.

Which musical artists/albums get you going and keep you inspired?
GABRIELA: Rodrigo y Gabriela, Café Tacvba, Julieta Venegas, The Killers, Dave Mathews, The Postal Service.

LETICIA: Bacilos, Ivy Queen, Selena, Mecano, Chavela Vargas, Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, and Leonidas Kavakos’ violin… anything really, I love music and have a pretty eclectic taste.

What books do you recommend (pleasure, work and anything in between)?
GABRIELA: Sweet Teeth and Loose Bowels: The adventures of an International Aid Worker by Michael Gerber, a social entrepreneur, nonprofit management expert and one of the most inspiring human beings I have ever met.

LETICIA: Controlled Decay by Gabriela Jáuregui (one of the people I love and admire the most); Las Aventuras de Don Chipote o Cuando los Pericos Mamen, a 1928 novel on migration that is considered by many to be the first Chicano novel; We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change by Myles Horton and Paulo Freire.

Which websites do you visit often (work and/or personal)?
For everything:

• google.com
• gmail.com (since we use it for email and to communicate when in different cities!)

For pleasure:

• facebook.com
• socialedge.org/blogs/global-x
• papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com
• blog.ted.com

For news:

• milenio.com
• reforma.com.mx
• nytimes.com
• economist.com
• blogs.iht.com/tribtalk/business/globalization

What advice or quote do you keep close to your heart as a social change leader?
When we started working on CREA, even before we knew what CREA was about, we were both inspired by Dr. Y.C. James Yen’s Principles of Participatory Development and Credo of Rural Reconstruction. It embodies the way we approach social change:

“Go to the people, live among them, learn from them, plan with them, work with them, start with what they know, build on what they have, teach by showing, learn by doing, not a showcase but a pattern, not odds and ends but a system, not piecemeal but an integrated approach, not to conform but to transform, not relief but release."