Profile: Chanel Funakoshi

GBB Panama Blog

Chanel Funakoshi, Business Administration

Blog 4

Sadly, it’s our last day in El Bale. We spent the past two days trying to decide what we wanted to do to help the farmers and we came up with a few feasible plans. First, we held a workshop yesterday that emphasized the importance of having an organizational structure. We presented a proposed way of structuring the farmers’ co-op and they were able to decide on formal roles for several of the members. By the end of the day, they had already appointed a president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and a few other roles within the co-op. We thought this was a great first step for the farmers to build upon. We also held a workshop on accounting and record keeping. Up until now, the farmers did not have any records of their purchases, sales, or inventory. We gave them a simple workshop on balance sheets and recording inventory, and also gave them a template they can use to keep track of these types of things. The third workshop we presented to the farmers was on marketing. I actually wasn’t there for the presentation, but I heard it was great. The students gave the farmers some ideas on how they can differentiate their product from competitors and led them through a SWOT analysis of their co-op.

The most significant meeting we had so far was definitely the presentation of our capital investment fund. Each of us donated $100 at the start of our trip to give to the co-op, which gave us a total of $2100. On Tuesday night, our group met to decide on what we wanted to do with the money. After about an hour of discussion, we all agreed that we were going to help a couple of the co-op’s initiatives. The first was donating money to help complete the central building for the group. The farmers actually started to build this structure in El Bale, however, they ran out of supplies and were not able to complete it. We decided that we wanted to donate all the materials – cement, roofing, and paint – so the farmers could finish this structure. The second initiative we decided to help was the expansion of the co-op. We wanted to buy the farmers the necessary supplies to build up their honey farm. This included 500 wooden frames and 500 sheets of wax. Lastly, we left the remaining money to the farmers’ start up fund. We felt that this money should be left with the farmers so they can pay for whatever costs that may come up.

This was a very emotional presentation. After we presented each item that we were going to donate, the farmers all smiled and clapped in appreciation. They looked incredibly happy to receive the little donation we were able to give. The farmers then took the time to thank us for everything we’ve done in the past few days. They were so grateful that we were trying to help improve their lives and they were especially thankful that we believed in them. It was an incredible feeling to hear the farmers thank us for everything we’ve been working on. Seeing the farmers so excited and appreciative really made this trip worth it for me.

| back to top |

Blog 3

Today was a crazy, hectic day! We spent the majority of the day visiting one of the honeybee sites in the community. I honestly thought it would be a quick drive, maybe half an hour max, but this was definitely not the case. We all jumped into the infamous 4x4 trucks again, and headed towards the mountains. This ride was even rougher than before. We encountered steep 45-degree angle inclines, crossed small streams of water, and were constantly dodging low hanging branches. This drive took about an hour and a half, but we stopped a few times to enjoy our surroundings in the mountains of Panama and to take a bunch of touristy pictures. One of the highlights was actually jumping out of the trucks and climbing a mini-mountain. It was an extremely steep hike, and I was complaining about my burning thighs most of the time. The farmers, however, raced up the mountain with ease, and helped us along the way too. When we finally got to the top, the view was amazing. We had a 360-degree view of the Panamanian mountains and we could see the clouds touching the mountains around us. It was breathtaking. Getting down from the top was a different story, but we all made it safely with the help of the local farmers who were pros at climbing.

When we finally arrived at the honey farm site, we had to walk another half an hour to actually see the beehives. We looked at the hives from a distance so we didn’t disturb the bees, but you could tell that these farmers set up their farms very carefully. They explained to us that the reason why they build their hives so far away is because they want to produce the purest honey possible. Their hives are in a perfect ecosystem; there are no pesticides in the local flowers and the bees are living in a healthy environment. This allows the farmers to harvest a very organic honey. Visiting the hives was a great experience because we were able to see how the farmers live and work. I still can’t fathom how they do it every single day. Most of them walk about 2-3 hours in the blazing heat, just to do their job.

After looking at the hives, we were invited to eat lunch at Brother Alcedes’ father’s home. This house was where some of the honey gets packaged and labeled for sale. Brother Alcedes showed us where they kept the honey, which is in this huge tub with a valve at the bottom for bottling. He also let each of us bottle some honey and label the bottles. It was a really cool experience. At the house, we got a chance to talk more with the farmers about some of the problems they’re having. We asked them about their legal status and if they were doing anything in regards to that issue. They said that they are currently in the process of filling out the paperwork to become a “co-op” or cooperative, however, they must meet a list of requirements before they can do so. Some of the requirements include building a central structure for the home base of the co-op, deciding on a formal organization structure, and passing health requirements. These are the things we definitely need to focus on in the next couple of days.

| back to top |

Blog 2

Our group of twenty arrived in Panama a couple of days ago, and we were all surprised to feel the heat of Central America. It’s ridiculously hot here! We stayed in Panama City the first night, and woke up bright and early the next morning to travel to our project site. The drive took about three and a half hours to the main city, Santiago. After we reached this point, we were told that we needed to change vehicles in order to get to the village of El Bale. We quickly moved from our nice air-conditioned tour bus, to three 4x4 trucks with metal caging in the back, and prepared for an epic off-roading adventure. There were really no roads established from then on. Everything was dirt, and there were hills and rocks all over the place. It was definitely the roughest drive we had to endure so far. Finally after about an hour of holding on for dear life, hitting my head against the metal cage a few times, and looking at the beautiful scenery, we arrived at the village of El Bale. We were immediately welcomed by the leader of the community, Padre Roberto, who was very excited to meet all of us. He showed us where we were sleeping (thankfully we each have a bed and there are four working toilets!), and then invited us to play baseball with some of the local children.

It’s necessary for me to say that baseball in El Bale is intense! The kids have tons of energy and can play for hours and hours, nonstop. We tried to keep up with them, but I’m pretty sure they were laughing at our horrible baseball skills. We played until the sun went down.

After baseball, we had our first meal in the country. I’m not going to lie; I was extremely scared about dinner. All of our travel consultations prior to leaving for Panama warned us that we shouldn’t eat anything raw, drink the water, or eat anything that touched the water, so I was a little weary to dive into the village’s food, but I was completely wrong. Dinner was amazing. We had rice, beans, a beef stew mix, mushroom and onion gravy, and salad. This first meal definitely eased a lot of my worries about being abroad for the first time.

After dinner, we met as a group and talked about some of our expectations and what we wanted to accomplish. Many of us still didn’t know what to expect, but we were all excited at the same time. We concluded the night with a three-hour star gazing session. The stars last night were incredible and it literally looked like we were in a planetarium. We all lay out on the cement court outside, and spent our first night in the country truly appreciating the beauty of Panama.

Today, we really started to work on our business project. In the morning we had our first meeting with the main organizer of the honeybee farm, Brother Alcedes. He started by introducing how the honeybee farm is set up and what they need help with. We immediately learned that the farm is made up about 12 different families. Each family lives in their own respective area of the community, but the distance between each family ranges from about 1 hour to 6 hours in terms of walking distance. None of the farmers have transportation, and each farmer has a different number of hives at their site. Some have about 2-3 hives, while others have up to 19 hives. This makes it difficult for the farmers to organize a supply list for ordering in bulk. Another issue that came up during this meeting is the fact that the farmers are not making money. They are selling their product to a middleman for $5, who then raises the price a couple more dollars to sell in the supermarket. We asked Brother Alcedes why they haven’t tried to cut out the middleman, and he said that the farmers don’t have a legal status that allows them to sell their product straight to supermarkets. This is a huge problem for the honey farm group right now. We’re still trying to gather more information about the honey farm, so hopefully we can get this all done tomorrow.

| back to top |

Blog 1

Our trip to Panama is approaching quickly and there is still so much to be done. Everything from getting our itinerary set, to compiling more research, to even just picking up some extra bug spray – this next week will be hectic. For everyone who hasn’t heard about us, Global Business Brigades is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to helping various micro-enterprises around the world. There are about 30 clubs all over the country on different college campuses and this school year we decided to start a USC branch. I was extremely excited to get this organization on campus because it is truly something I have never seen before. GBB is different than any other program at USC because it mixes practical business skills, philanthropy and traveling abroad together in a very ambitious way. I am anxious to see how our pilot trip runs this Spring Break.

It’s crazy to think that we’re a week away because we’ve been planning this trip since back in October. It has definitely been a long process, but hopefully it will be well worth the work and anticipation. The process started early on with figuring out which micro-enterprise we’d be working with. This is determined with the help of the parent organization, Global Brigades, which oversees each student organization on the various campuses. Global Brigades actually works with non-government organizations (NGOs) in Central America to identify where the need lies. In the beginning, we were directed to a few struggling businesses in rural areas. After discussing our options, we decided on a honeybee farm in El Bale, Panama. This honey farm is currently struggling to make profits; they have a lack of communication with their distributors and they are highly dependent on a local church to help them make money. What we want to do is visit the village, take a look at how they are running their business, and then make suggestions as to how we think they can improve their current situation. It’s pretty much an opportunity to work on a real life case, while practicing valuable business skills.

We’ve tried to prepare in the past few months, but we keep hearing the same things from our advisors – you’re going to have to be flexible and learn as you go. What we have done so far has been breaking up into four groups – operations, marketing, sales and finance. We have also been doing research on how a honey farm works, how micro-enterprises run in Panama, and just general information about the location. Hopefully this will help us really make a difference during our time in the community. I’m really excited to go to Panama, especially since this is my first time abroad. I don’t really know what to expect, but I am excited to take everything in and throw myself into a new experience.