Latinas Control The U.S Economy

Yesterday, Maria Contreras-Sweet, Administrator of the United State Small Business Administration (SBA), and Nely Galan, the founder of the Adelante Movement, entered into a partnership that will be focused on empowering and training Latinas, giving them the skills they need to become entrepreneurs. This is a nationwide imitative that will expand on the work that is already being done by the Adelante Movement which has met with over a hundred thousand women and trained over twenty-five thousand women over the last four years throughout the country.

“Women shouldn’t just be buying shoes but buying building,” said Galan. Adding that “we all have an information gap and this partnership helps close that gap.”

Latinas are the number one consumer group in the country and that will only expand as Hispanics become the majority in this country. Administrator Contreras-Sweet stated that “Latinas are the fastest growing entrepreneurial group in the country. Growing over 87% since 2007.”Recognizing these facts, the SBA entered into this partnership in order to build on their already historic feat of 23% increase in loans to Latino entrepreneurs.

“If we as women bought from each other we all would be rich,” Galan affirmed.

The Adelante Movement is a group founded by Galan during her time on the marketing board for Coca Cola. She created this organization in order to empower Latinas and started off on a speaking tour throughout the country to inspire more entrepreneurship within the community. After meeting with hundreds of Latinas, they asked her that they needed the tools to become entrepreneurs. That is how the Adelante Movement came to be, from the leadership of Galan who wanted Latinas to get the tools they needed in order to take their rightfully earned seat at the table.

Galan also recently released a book titled “Self Made” which has quickly become a New York Times Best Seller. Galan is only 1 of 6 Latinas to accomplish such a feat, when asked about it she said, “its an amazing feat but I just want to let everyone know that it is very hard, but we need to do these things in order to move forward the movement of empowering women.”