Micro-entrepreneur Elena Amaru Learns Business Fundamentals and Boosts Self-Confidence as a Bonus

Micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries often lack basic business knowledge and personal confidence needed to make the leap that will take their businesses beyond subsistence. In many of these countries, little or no business training is available to women micro-entrepreneurs. In some developing countries, tradition and social convention about gender-determined roles and responsibilities lead women to stay in the home. Those who become micro-entrepreneurs are often driven to the choice by financial need and lack of job alternatives. This case describes the business challenges facing a female micro-entrepreneur who worked from home and who participated in a large-scale, collaborative business education program set in Peru called Proyecto Salta (or, Salta, which means leap in Spanish).