Training program for the "Christine King" Cooperative

This video interview is in Spanish with an English transcript below.

Interview with Guadelupe Toruño Acuña about her training work with Christine King Cooperative. In July 2020, Christine King Cooperative started a training process with the Technical Cooperation of Japan and the Ministry of Family Economy. The cooperative carries out almost all the community training and education programs promoted by Superemos in Estelí and northern Nicaragua. So enhancing and improving the cooperative’s administrative and managerial skills is important both for the cooperative itself and for the continuing success of Superemos’ community work.

Guadelupe : Good afternoon, my name is Maria Guadelupe Toruño Acuña. I work with a project of JICA, the Technical Cooperation of Japan, also with the MEFCCA in conjunction with the National University of Engineering here in Nicaragua... MEFCCA is the Ministry of Family Economy here in Nicaragua.

Superemos: What is your role in your work with the Christine King Cooperative?

Guadelupe: The purpose of the project is to improve quality and productivity within the cooperative so that the cooperative can improve all aspects of its current weaknesses. A diagnosis is being made to find out what the problems are in each of the projects and to be able to improve them to be able to provide customers with products from the shoe store, sublimation or ceramics, all the projects where they have products so that they can go with good quality and can meet the needs of customers and that will have a positive impact so that there will also be more income for the cooperative.

Superemos: Guadelupe, can you tell us a little about the methodology you are using for this work?

Guadelupe: We are working on the five "S" methodology, which is a Japanese methodology. The five "S" are five words in Japanese. I can mention them, it is seyton, seiri, seiso, seiketzu and shitzuke. Those five words have a great meaning. They are activities that can be done inside the cooperative, they are easy activities and they are things that we can put into practice in the cooperative. The first three "S" which are seyri, seyso and seypo, with that we practice the cleaning of the work area, organization of the work areas and also the fact of working the three "R", reduce, reuse or recycle, we also implement what is continuous improvement and also form work teams so that everything is worked as a team, not with each one as an island but all in favor of improving the cooperative. So that is the work under the five "S".

Superemos: And how participative is the methodology, and has your experience been that it has been well received by the members?

Guadelupe: So far all the members I have seen are interested in participating, interested in learning and knowing the methodology and they have all received training explaining point by point what is going to be done within the cooperative and also explaining the methodology of the five "S's". They already know that they have to join activities, today for example we are creating a continuous improvement committee, that is, for each project we choose a person with whom we will interact and will be working to create activities. If there is any weakness within that project, we will attack that weakness in order to improve. So, everyone is interested in participating, everyone comes to the trainings, they join when a call is made for their presence and they see the interest in participating and improving as a cooperative.

Superemos: What would be the next phase after the diagnostic phase?

Guadelupe: Well, we have already finished the diagnostic phase and now I am preparing a report on the results of the diagnostic and the diagnostic part of the report comes hand in hand with an action plan. The action plan includes all the activities that will be carried out over the course of the months to improve the cooperative. Once all the actions have been implemented, the diagnosis is done again to show the before and after and to be able to see the scope of the project and the improvements made by the cooperative once the project has been completed.

Superemos: Have you already identified the indicators that will be used to measure the progress of your work?

Guadelupe: Yes, all these indicators will be presented in the five "S" training sessions. It was explained that the entire action plan, all the indicators, all the results of the diagnosis will be presented to the board as well as to all the members of the cooperative so that everyone knows how we are doing and what we intend to do and what actions we will have to take to improve in the future.

Superemos: And how long is the whole process going to take?

Guadelupe: The project is finishing in March of next year.