It has almost been two years now since Kuros! started distributing pepper spray to women as a way to protect themselves from violent and sexually based attacks. It has been an incredible 18 months so far; seeing us spread from India to Africa, and now into Latin America.
On August 23rd we are conducting our first pepper spray distribution in El Salvador, a country that has come into the international spot light recently for its extremely high rate of violent crime and murder.
For our expansion into the country, we have partnered up with an amazing non-governmental organization called Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad or CIS for short. CIS is on the ground in El Salvador, working day in and day out to improve the lives of the Salvadorian people, and we are extremely fortunate to be able to work with such an amazing group of people. Leah Solheim with CIS has been instrumental in helping to organize this first distribution and I look forward to a great partnership with CIS as we continue to provide the option of pepper spray to Salvadorian women in the years to come.
In addition to our continued expansion, In preparation for this trip I had the pleasure of becoming a certified pepper spray instructor through one of SABRE's master instructors, Gary Sikorski. It's easy to say that Gary is one of the foremost expert in the use of pepper spray, and his list of accolades is long. Being not only a retired Deputy Police Chief, he now serves as the Primary Defensive Tactics Instructor at the Wayne County Regional Police Training Center and has trained over 3,000 recruits and officers. Gary is the man when it comes to the use of pepper spray affectively, and I consider his knowledge and useful information imparted onto me to be indispensable. I am confident now in the increased training we are providing these women, along with the SABRE pepper spray that we now provide to women on our drops.
If you would like more information about our great NGO partner Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad, or Gary Sikorski and his extremely useful training classes their websites are below
http://www.cis-elsalvador.org/
http://www.reasonableforce.com/
A great NGO partner, a great product to distribute to the women, and an ever increasing instruction base are the keys to a successful distribution network; and I am very thankful for all of the participation and help we have received so far in making this a reality. I look forward to our first drop in Latin America and offering the women of El Salvador a fighting chance!