“Jesús Carpintero – Ensena un oficio” is a learning space, through entrepreneurship workshops, which offers people the opportunity to train. It is aimed in particular at the inhabitants of the vulnerable sector near Fondacio in Chile.

A district at the confluence of several worlds

Chile is one of the most unequal countries in the world and one of the five most unequal in Latin America. This reality is present in a very concrete way in Huechuraba, a municipality in the north of Santiago located where the headquarters of Fondacio in Chile is located. Thus, a very poor neighborhood adjoins wealthy neighborhoods and a business city.

Creation context

Jesus Carpintero began in 2012 with a workshop to awaken everyone’s creativity and then extended to workshops on entrepreneurship.

A place to start

Jesús Carpintero receives adults who want to learn about new entrepreneurial opportunities, for their life and that of their family, which allow them to generate sources of income.

The workshop grows as its participants themselves grow through art and techniques. You learn not only to cook, to style hair and to handle tools, but also to awaken new visual stimuli with colors, designs and shapes. Inspiration is born and the world around us becomes attentive to the creations.

Hence the need to open up to the world, to visit museums and places of culture.

A range of workshops

For 2019, 6 entrepreneurship workshops have been designed:

• Coloring hairdressing course
• Basic hairdressing course (cutting and styling); Manicure and hair removal
• Sewing workshop with recycled clothes
• Patchwork workshop in 2 modules (Basic and Advanced)
• Weaving workshop
• Alliances

The team of “Jesús Carpintero – Ensena un oficio”, is made up of a team of professors specialized in each field and a management team, with the support of IFFAmérica students who carry out their pre-internships in this program.

For the hairdressing workshop, the program is associated with the Faundez Institute, which certifies the courses.

In 2017, the first entrepreneurship workshops, referring to aesthetics, began: basic hairdressing (haircut and haircut) and manicure and hair removal, certifying 35 people. Four of them prepared as teachers to teach in 2018. In 2019, in 4 of the 5 ongoing workshops, the call is for 32 people, of which 70% are from the municipality of Huechuraba, 25% from Recoleta and 5% from other municipalities.