More than 100 new Costa Rica artisan products will be sold at the new El Mercadito store in the Juan Santamaria International Airport.

The articles offered in this store include clothes, articles for house decoration, costume jewelry, among others, which are manufactured by 97 families in poverty situation. The new store will generate supply chains and employment for around 350 people that are part of homes in vulnerable situations.
The families are part of the Cooperative of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises of Multiple Services in Costa Rica (Coopemipymes), the first one of the kind involving beneficiaries of social programs.

80% of them are in poverty situation, another 3% are part of the National Strategy of Poverty Reduction “Bridge to Development”, and the majority are entrepreneurial women that have received attention from the Mixed Institute of Social Assistance (IMAS).

The commercial space is a result of a public and private alliance involving Aeris Holding Costa Rica as part of its social responsibility program.
The artisans that are part of this project received training and administration assessment for the improvement, redesign and innovation of their products with the purpose of offering unique artisan objects representative of our communities to the foreign visitors.

“We are leaving behind the assistance-based approach and looking to create in the population we help the generation of capacities, strengthening aspects such as education, the access to information technologies, entrepreneurship and human values, so that they have the tools that will allow them to overcome their poverty condition by their own means” commented Emilio Arias, executive president of IMAS.

“El Mercadito” is a 60 square meter space designed by the global team of commercial areas for Aeris, and had a total cost of $350 thousand USD.