Carta De Recomendacion

I, Mrs. Elena Cocon, am the President of “Asociacion Integral de Mujeres, Fe y Ezperanza”. This Association is composed of leaders working with various communities; I am the leader of Patzun, Chimaltenango, where the Headquarter is located. Patzun, Chimaltenango is a community with a population of approximately 40,000 people and around 10,000 houses. One of the biggest issues facing thiscommunity is the lack of proper housing, which is why I also founded a group called “Comite Bilateral Maga Mujeres Reales”, in which we focus specifically in land and housing. This organization is now international; we are working in Brazil among other countries in Latin America. We leverage our international presence by learning from the organizations in other countries regarding ways to fight the lackof housing.
On 2008, Stephanie Townson approached us to offer the project “Casa Para Todos”, in which she would come into our community, find the best candidates for a government subsidy and build them an adequate home to replace the huts they had in their own pieces of land. We were initially interested in the business model of her proposal because it would allow the people to stay in theirland, which would cut the costs of the house, making it more accessible to the people of Patzun. Stephanie was the director of this project, which is how we ended up working very closely together for the past 4 years. She is a bright individual, with vast knowledge in her area of work. She knows how to transmit her passion to help our communities, and more importantly, she knows how to transmittrust and honesty, which is difficult to find. The people of Patzun have been scammed before so we have learned to be skeptical when people approach us with proposals that sound too good to be true. Stephanie was able to help us overcome this skepticism by dealing personally with the people from our communities. She would come to our town and personally explain to 100-200 interested families what theprocess is like, from applying to subsidy to getting their homes. She came to my home multiple times until she felt that the people felt comfortable trusting her and working with her.
I am a strong supporter of the power of women and strongly believe that women are the ones that can help our communities move forward, that is why I enjoyed working with Stephanie so much. She is a strong leaderand a very passionate individual. I have grown to respect and admire her and truly believe that her ideas and passion are something that can truly help many Guatemalans.
In our communities, it has become extremely difficult to trust people, which is why Stephanie’s work ethic stood out from the beginning. She has impressed us multiple times with her honesty and profound interest in thewellbeing of the people. Stephanie got involved with the women of rural communities and was able to provide over 400 homes only in the town of Patzun. The people were extremely thankful, as was I. She was involved in the entire process, from gathering and sending in the paperwork, to every aspect of the construction. A lot of people just sell the houses and leave, on the other hand, Stephanie would comein with profound interest in social development, which is why she was so successful in our communities. People believed what she had to say and trusted her to deliver her promises and realize peoples’ dream of owning a home.
For example, she decided to not bring in construction workers from the city but rather use local workers in order to provide them work and expand the impact of thehouses. She would also hire local workers to transport the materials and provide them opportunities to earn money while helping the development of their community. That was also a main contributor to how she won over the people of Patzun’s hearts. Not only did she provide a great housing solution, but she also created a sense of unity within the community by involving them in the realization of...