Business Overview

Yenia Bipuro is multifaceted women; she not only wears the hat of business women but is also a wife, mother and president to the community bank of Pueblo Nuevo. Her artisan business Raíces Ancestrales sells a wide range of Wounaan cultural crafts and aims to continue growing.

Raíces Ancestrales - Yenia Bipuro - Pueblo Nuevo, Panamá

Economic Challenge

Yenia Bipuro is a strong leader in the community of Pueblo Nuevo, and the president of their community bank, which is the highest achieving caja in Panama. In addition to this role, she is an skillful artisan with her own business that is constantly looking for innovative ways to improve her sales and have a larger outreach to promote her culture. She is very strategic in her sales and has recently developed commercial relationships with some individual buyers in Panama City. Similarly, she is very active in reaching local markets and events in Darien and other provinces. She uses mainly WhatsApp stories as a way to promote her products and she claims it has been a very effective way go gain new customers and buyers, receive invites for events, and make herself be seen by her phone contacts

The Business

Yenia Bipuro is a skilled artisan from the community of Pueblo Nuevo Wounaan. She is passionate about her Wounaan culture and the artisan work she creates. She has been able to achieve this through her charisma, kindness and entrepreneurial spirit, yet she is continously looking for ways to improve her business and make it more profitable and sustainable for her and her family.

Competitive Advantage

She customises some of her artisan work based on her customer needs

Obstacles

Some of the biggest challenges Yenia faces is access to materials, intermediaries take the highest share of the profits and the Transportation/logistics to sell her products outside of the community. Furthermore, Pueblo Nuevo is a town of artisans, thus, there is a lot of competitors.

Business Snapshot

Annual Revenue
$1740.00
Employees
1
Initial Investment
$100.00

Next Steps

The tasks thatRaíces Ancestrales - Yenia Bipuro has prioritized are:

1: Marketing strategy development /including pricing
2: Inventory management and product development (innovation) - she wants to do price tags with her logo/ phone number & social media
3: Bookkeeping and accounting training

Business Brigades that have consulted this business:

Chapter
Date
# of Volunteers
Chapter
Date
# of Volunteers
USC Business
01/2020
6

Page Last Updated:August 18, 2020