Entrepreneurs share their experiences for Women’s Day

Peru has over 2 million small and medium-sized companies run by women. March 8it is necessary to highlight the contribution to the economy of this genre, which represents more than 40% of the population.

“I have never been afraid of work, I have been doing it since childhood”

At 36, Marlita Tenorio is the owner of a company that makes clothes has been involved in sports since 2010. Her business is called Águila Sport and she started it in a 2 m2 shop with 4 sewing machines she bought with a family loan. She now ships her products to Europe, the US and Puerto Rico.

If there is an event he remembers, it is his childhood in his hometown of Santa Rosa de la Junga in the province of Jaén, Cajamarca region. The limited resources of her family forced her to work very early, “At the age of 7 I worked with my parents in the coffee harvest”refers.

She came to Lima at the age of 17 to attend university, but she failed and devoted herself to raising money to study accounting at a private institute while working for a textile company, where she gained experience that motivated her to set up a business.

“Once during a walk, I began to think about the name, then I remembered the song “Like eagles, they will go and not get tired,” and called my business Orel, because I never stopped and will continue with all the difficulties,” he referred.

Although the path of being a businesswoman is not easy, her desire to own a business, be independent, and be able to create jobs for more Peruvians has motivated her to make several sacrifices.

“I worked at dawn, with my belly sometimes pregnant, we found out, we made many mistakes that sometimes made us think we would go bankrupt, just like during the pandemic we thought we would go bankrupt, but thank God I reinvented his mask, and in the lowest months we had to sell through the Central Market,” he explained.

Five generations of pisco women

In Peru, 4 out of 10 women create their own work; In addition, they run most of the micro and small companies such as Finca 314, a winery founded in 1821 and run by five generations of women.

The current manager is Carmen Robatti de Moquilaza, but she is also a pisco maker, president of the pisco committee at the ADEX Exporters Association, studies oenology and is active in various organizations.

“We have to overcome our fears, we have to suddenly overcome what does not motivate us to move forward, and how we can overcome it, convincing ourselves that we can make this sector continue to grow, but technically preparing to withstand all these demands. aspects of markets, both national and international,” he says.

His daughter Claudia RobuttShe is a business administrator, international sommelier and professional taster and emphasizes that she is “passionate about pisco”. In recent years, along with her mother and two other sisters, they have worked to promote six pisco-based products that represent the most important characters in her family.

One of the goals of these women, in addition to technical specialization in the production of pisco, is the promotion of female labor. They currently employ over 70 women, especially during the grape harvest season. “They have a lot of delicacy when cutting and trimming,” says Carmen Robatti.

Still a big gap to close

While significant progress has been made in women’s empowerment, there are challenges that need to be faced at the economic level, such as reducing the economic dependency that condemns some to become victims of gender-based violence. In Peru, 3 out of 10 women do not have their own income, which puts them in a precarious and vulnerable position.

In the workplace, on average, a woman earns almost 300 soles less than her base salary, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics, and informality affects 4 out of 10.