U4C Center Impact Program

Empowering Women in the Bolivian Mining Sector

In Quime, a rural Bolivian mining town where 75% of girls leave school before age ten, women are learning to read, teaching their neighbors, and running businesses of their own. Since 2010, U4C has made this possible through the Women’s Support and Training Center, CECAP Bob Reid, our longest running and model program, which combines literacy, healthcare access, and business development under one roof. Fifteen years on, the women of Quime are diversifying their income, supporting their families, and leading positive change across the Greater Quime area.

The Challenge

In Quime, a small and isolated mining hub in the department of La Paz, 75% of girls drop out of school before age ten, and women are twice as likely to be illiterate. Women work out of necessity while men spend long hours inside the mines, where accident rates in Bolivia’s small rural operations run six to seven times higher than in larger ones. Yet women earn poor wages and remain vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. In a country where 45% of the population lives below the poverty line, and where Indigenous and rural communities face the steepest barriers, equipping women with skills to overcome these inequalities is the first step toward reducing extreme poverty and the gender based violence associated with it.

The Innovation

Here’s the version with innovation as the through line:

What began as education on childcare and domestic violence has grown into something rare in rural Bolivia: a women led local economy. The innovation at the heart of CECAP Bob Reid is that women do not just receive training, they become the trainers, teaching literacy, sharing skills, and multiplying every investment across the community. Through the center, we deliver culturally and linguistically sensitive programming:

Literacy training in which local women are prepared as literacy instructors themselves
Train the trainer programming that strengthens local teacher skills
Business development rooted in weaving, sewing, culinary arts, and silk screening
Education on accessing local healthcare
Community skill sharing that fuels the women led economy

Today the center’s focus is empowering women in the mining sector to become successful entrepreneurs. We are reorganizing and supporting a core group of women leaders while reconnecting with local stakeholders, so that mentorship, skills, and collaboration flow from within the community itself. The goal is a program sustained by the very women it serves, driving resilience and economic transformation in Quime and beyond.

The Impact

Fifteen years of CECAP Bob Reid have changed what is possible for women in Quime. In that time, 409 women learned to read and write, gained business skills, and stepped into leadership roles, and 27 of them became literacy instructors who now teach other women, multiplying education across the community. Four women led microbusinesses remain active and profitable today, generating independent income years after their founding, proof that this growth endures.

And with 469 women trained to recognize domestic violence and protect their own and their children’s health, the impact reaches into homes as well as markets. A community that once had no women led institutions now has an economy shaped by them.

“I feel strong, confident and with no fear”

Antonia

CECAP Quime, Bolivia

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Healthy Mothers, Thriving Children

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The CECAP Bob Reid Legacy in Quime

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From Learning to Read to Leading a Community

Looking Ahead

In 2026, we are strengthening women’s empowerment and entrepreneurial initiatives in Quime by supporting business formalization, building relationships with the public sector, and holding quarterly gatherings that combine workshops, mentorship, and follow up. At the heart of this work, the women of Quime are forming a renewed association of their own, and we are accompanying them through every step of the process, from organizational structure to leadership development, so the association becomes a lasting voice for women in the region.

And it reaches far beyond her home.

This movement is built on a simple truth: when one woman is supported, the impact doesn’t stop with her. It never does. It extends into her children, her neighbors, her community, into families, communities, and futures none of us will fully see, but all of us can help shape.