The Wiñak Story: Investing in the Vision of Fredy Shihuango, Kichwa Entrepreneur, Archidona, Ecuador

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 Nine years ago, Fredy Shihuango had a dream: to bring members of his community together to form an association of cacao growers dedicated to improving the quality of life in their communities.

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 In this.photo, Wiñak leader Fredy with Dr. David Lansdale in Archidona, Napo, Ecuador

 Two years ago, in 2011, a coalition of nine top NGOs approached Fredy and offered to help him develop a prototype, a bar of chocolate that he could promote and sell on the local market.  The NGOs make good on their promise, but the real opportunity and challenge for Fredy today is to develop the knowledge and the skills that will enable him and his 211 associates to brand and market the cacao products both locally and internationally.

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The Beyond Chacay Foundation is currently working with Fredy and other Wiñak leaders to develop a viable business model, and a business and marketing plan where tourists, both local and international, become both the buyers and investors that will transform Fredy´s dream into an exciting opportunity for himself, his family, and the extended network of 29 affiliated communities he has been working with for the last three years. Instead of just creating another chocolate bar in a saturated market, the Foundation will work with Fredy to create chocolate bonbons that will represent the extraordinary array of flavors available in local chakras, the farms the Kichwa cultivate which also represent their cosmovision.

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  Fredy has been working closely with an extensive coalition of partners, through what he calls associative entrepreneurship, that include the Ministries of Agriculture, Tourism, Cultural Heritage, Production and the Environment. Based on the Scandinavian model of the Quadruple Helix of collaboration, the Beyond Chacay Foundation expands the network to include the Universidad San Francisco de Quito representing academia, the Rainforest Alliance, the Andean Community Fund, and other stakeholders who embrace Fredy’s vision and who are willing to invest the resources to increase the value proposition, through the co-creation of value at the beginning of the value chain. 

Tourists who come to Ecuador from North America, in addition to experiencing Ecuador´s extraordinarily biodiverse flora and fauna, have the privilege of not only investing in Wiñak, but also of serving as stewards of the natural as well as cultural and environmental treasures of the communities they visit.  When they return to their home country, they do so as consumers and as chasquis, the messengers of the Inca, spreading the news about Ecuador, a diamond in the rough, in their home communities.

Beyond Chacay Foundation is currently also working with 10 different clusters that range from honey products and derivatives to colorful handicrafts from Otavalo, one of Latin America´s leading indigenous markets. Ecotourism as Stewardship empowers entrepreneurs like Fredy around the country to reclaim the value of the raw material at the beginning of the value chain, improving the quality of life for themselves and the communities they represent.

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