MiraMira has been open for almost two months now. So far we are satisfied with the sales and the clients’ feedback about our services. To promote the new business we organized a children’s drawing competition in June, with the theme: ‘Seeing a better world’. We arranged with a local TV station to show a daily commercial and with a local radio to broadcast a message in Juigalpa and the surrounding villages.
But of course the best advertisement for our new business is positive feedback from satisfied customers by word of mouth. Fortunately, we have skilled staff with years of work experience in their field, so that the clients who visit us leave the store satisfied and with new glasses!
Expansion
We are now in the process of training a second saleswoman for one day a week, so that the permanent saleswoman is available to visit companies which show an interest in entering into agreements for their staff to buy our products more cheaply. Our advantage is that we build up a fixed client base. So far we made agreements with three small companies (around ten employees) and with one larger one of around two hundred employees! We sell frames, but the service of fitting lenses with the correct prescription into the frames is done in Managua because there this is no laboratory in Juigalpa where this can be done. Expanding our market also means identifying more laboratories to which we can send orders, as we do not want to become totally dependent on one or two laboratories. Our immediate aim is to protect the quality of our services and offer the services at prices which are attractive for potential clients. It will take some time to clear our debts because of our initial investment outlay, but we are on the right track.
Agreement with the Fundación Ruach
After some delay an agreement has now been signed with the Fundación Ruach. The basic agreement is that as soon as our debts are cleared our profits will be used to benefit the social work of the Fundación, i.e. the Community Home and the Activities Club. But a first amount has already been transferred to the Ruach Fundación. This is because in September 2020 and March 2021, we joined the `Little by Little campaigns of the GlobalGiving platform, with the aim of raising money for ‘Ruach Optics’ as we then thought the business was going to be called. The campaigns raised the wonderful amount of around $10,000 USD! As a gesture of good intentions that amount has now been transferred to the account of the Ruach Foundation. The Ruach Board has prepared a plan how this money will be used in the coming months. MiraMira has made a great start and we thank all of you who contributed to this success via donations on the Global Giving project page ‘Ruach Optics’.
Together we can really make a difference! We show it constantly!
