Human Connections and its new partner

Before I started my internship with Human Connections, I thought that all the words and sentences in their website made sense and that I had a complete understanding of their way to offer their service. Nevertheless, even if their values, vision and mission was clear to me, after meeting their potential new partner Segis, I realized that I was not understanding the meaning behind this organization' name at all! Human connections, yes, connecting people from different nationalities with the locals in a responsible way, but yesterday I understood that is much more than that. Is connecting cultures, feelings, aspirations, passions, and dreams, is finding infinite forms of wisdom and success, and realizing that there is always ways to relate with others despite the differences.

When Elly told us about Segis, HC potential new partner, she said that he started his own restaurant and had some new ideas to attract HC clients and create a new tour; nevertheless she did not say that Segis is an amazing social entrepreneur!

To begin, he had everybody saying to him that he was crazy, that how he was going to create that kind of business in a place where there is not that much tourism and where he would not have many clients. "Le estaba tirando pedradas a la luna" he said, a Spanish saying that literally means " I was trowing rocks to the moon", since he felt that he was thinking grander and leaving logic aside. Although, that how businesses start, with someone thinking outside the box. The most impressive thing is that on a single place he is planning to include ways to tackle environmental, social and economic problems of his community, issues that any business in the world should consider.

First of all, since basic services like electricity do not get to his restaurant, he put a wind turbine to create power, plus he has a wood saving oven, and he's going to install solar panels. Since he believes that we need to protect nature, in addition, he has farm animals that he considers family that he wants to preserve in order to teach the kids of San Juan de Abajo (his town) where does their food comes from. Moreover, he uses completely natural ingredients. Even though his business is not having that many sales he strongly believes in providing high quality and reconnecting people with their food. He has already his own corn and plumbs cultures, and bee hives, although he wants to also cultivate onion, cilantro, cucumber, radish and watermelon. Thirdly, he recognizes that a big part of the lack of development in his town is due to political divisions within the population. He said that politicians and the people in general always opt to tackle their opposition instead of contributing to progressive programs when the other one is in power. Keeping this in mind he not only he has invited kids and young people to come and milk cows or cook with him and his wife Yadi, but other adults have started asking him about what he is doing in his "rancho" Las Parotas. In this way, he hopes to create an environment where anybody, no matter their political opinions, can have a great and peaceful experience by enjoying nature and the rustic, and start new bonds in the community.

Additionally, something I found very interesting, is that he has operated and expanded his business without any loan. In many developing countries governmental and banking institutions are not accessible to everybody or they have complex systems that makes really hard the access to capital. In Segis case, he said that the interest rates available to him are very high so he decided that he will grow slower but safer. Personally, I admire this kind of mindset since it takes a lot of resilience and hard work to built what he has from scratch with minimal funds.

Meeting him and Yadi showed us that great entrepreneur can come from any small corner of the world, no matter their religion, nationality or level of education. Furthermore, that we enjoy something enough and we are driven by our aspirations, we just need to figure ways to utilize our resources in the best way and be patient. Every individual has richness inside, ideas, aspirations and creativity, and this is more valuable than any amount of money. I believe that this is what this new tour is going to show visitors, and what HC mission is, to depict the value behind any kind of work and personal story.