Market Day
Alexandra Fournier
November 21, 2011

After several months of planning one of our most anticipated events took place last Saturday: the community Market Day.

For some time Shannon and I have been organizing this event to encourage trade and product diversity in the communities. Many women cultivate yucca and produce cassava and other yucca based products that they sell within their neighbouring communities, or travel 5 hours by bus to sell at the nearest market. In preparation for this event CAUSE, along with the organization INFOP, offered gardening and pastry making classes to local women that introduced new technical skills which they were encouraged to apply to expanding their businesses. The market day in Cusuna was an arena for local women to apply the skills learned in the workshops to produce a variety of products and to increase local trade.

In preparation for this day we first met with the Business Development classes of several communities to hear their feedback about the market day. The women were all very enthusiastic. We also met with the mayor of the Iriona municipality and received their support in planning the event. After establishing a location, discussing what each woman would sell and distributing advertisements, the big day finally arrived.

The market day was scheduled to take place from 10am to 2pm last Saturday, but many women arrived before 9am to setup. This was very encouraging to see since in Honduras things always start late. By 10am all the women had arrived with tables and chairs, and had organized their products on colourful tablecloths ready to be sold. A total of 15 women participated, an excellent turn out for the very first market day, and each had prepared a different product. There were tortillas, fish dishes, sweet buns, ginger cookies, cheese, pizza, corn, lychees, lemons, garlic, coconuts, cold drinks, clothes, personal products and much more. Even more impressive was that several women baked many of the products taught in the pastry making class, which included a variety of sweet breads, cookies and pizza!

These women donated their entire Saturday to the market day, but it was a wonderful time to meet with friends, dance to some music, marvel at and indulge in each other’s delicious foods, as well as sell their goods to travellers and other community members. Overall it was a very successful market day, and the women were extremely pleased and proud of their own success. The profits gained from this experience were not only the extra income that each woman earned, but the satisfaction and confidence achieved in preparing and implementing their market. Shannon and I felt very proud of their hard work and hope that their accomplishments on this day will encourage them, as well as other communities, to organize more market days in the future.