Social Empowerment

Social Empowerment focuses on building the capacity of low-income communities to actively participate in their own development. In particular, SNV focuses on efforts that empower women, indigenous populations, and young people, for example:

• In Honduras, SNV worked with indigenous and women artisans, small restaurant owners, and other cultural services providers to strengthen their products, marketing, and management skills in the tourism sector.
• Through accreditation of work-acquired skills (Cualificación de Experiencia Laboral in Spanish) SNV – in collaboration with universities, vocational training centers, the government and businesses – is ensuring that tractor drivers, cooks, agricultural labors, and other semi-skilled workers inBoliviagain formalized recognition for the skills gained while on the job. This has helped create mechanisms for standardizing pay scales and determining job profiles, as well as contributed to building the self-esteem of workers.

In Nicaragua and Honduras, young people are becoming coffee technicians, helping other farmers improve farm management and generating employment opportunities that can keep them in rural areas.