This work recounts the three years in which Marcelo Mendoza and Álvaro Hoppe travelled around Chile discovering all about lives dedicated to enterprises which could have been dreamed up by a novelist’s imagination. The stories include customers of Fondo Esperanza and Emprende.
The work “21 Dreams”, with texts by Marcelo Mendoza and photographs by Álvaro Hoppe, is a collection of the life stories of 21 independent workers from Arica to Tierra del Fuego. The book highlights a series of entrepreneurial projects by Chileans that enrich society with their creativity, hard work, and diversity.
This exquisite volume is the brainchild of the Belgian economist Jean-Paul Lacoste, and was sponsored by Fondo Esperanza, Emprende Microfinanzas and the Ford Foundation. The biologist Humberto Maturana and the priest Felipe Berríos also took part, and wrote the prologue to the book. The work is sponsored by the Network for the Development of Microfinance.
Juan Cristóbal Romero, General Manager of Fondo Esperanza, and one of the speakers at the event, said: “This work represents the soul of humanity. these are dreams of hope that represent over 50% of the country’s jobs”.
The prologue for the book was written by the priest Felipe Berríos, the economist Jean Paul-Lacoste and the aforementioned Humberto Maturana, all of whom provide background information on the stories of endeavor of these 21 people. In this project, the journalist Jean Philippe Cretton was able to engage in conversation with the so-called “Ice-cream man of the desert”, Pablo Montero; the owner of the mobile bookshop, Jorge Pineda; and Miguelina Oyarzún, christened “The Solitary Navigator” by Francisco Coloane.