Editor TLN
Generating a positive impact in the world entails great work and the participation of different social actors who want to promote a real change. Something that requires multiple views, territories and actions to have new proposals that are much more effective and inclusive.
However, this work implies greater challenges every day in a country like Colombia, where the rates of violence continue to escalate and affect the social work carried out by these people.
It was partly these factors that Acumen, an international organization, decided to create in 2007, the Fellows Program, an option that seeks to encourage a new generation of change agents who have embraced the challenge of solving the most complex challenges, providing them with tools that help them develop new solutions to build a more just, inclusive and sustainable world.
This program, which is in several countries around the world, arrived in Colombia in 2018 and has already had four cohorts formed and one in the selection process, with which a community of 95 change makers from different regions of the country was built, who They have been working from their territories to promote a real transformation.
According to Acumen figures, of the 95 people from the Fellows community in Colombia who were in the first four cohorts (between 2018 and 2022), it was found that they are distributed in 25 of the 32 departments of the country, 64% belong to urban areas, while 18% are in rural areas. Additionally, 54% are women, 15% belong to Afro-descendant communities and 2% to indigenous groups.
Laura Ruiz, who has been in charge of leading the team behind this program, says that it is a practice laboratory where only approximately 24 multidisciplinary leaders enter each year, who are selected by the organization from an endless number of applications. Then, they must go through five capsules of content that helps them understand the way in which actions are carried out around their communities and becomes a space for debate in which they talk about fundamental issues that the country is going through. and touches society.
“The first call, which was in 2018, was a space where all Colombians were aware of the work we had in building peace and making that dream come true. So, those who participated in that first cohort debated and proposed different ideas on how to build it, while last year, in the framework of the presidential elections, the Fellows decided to write a letter to the candidates where they put their points for consideration. about what they should do for the country”Ruiz stressed.
This program is framed in the power of collaboration, collective leadership and co-creation, in this way it is expected to observe how a community of diverse people can self-organize, accompany each other, generate new projects and initiatives to strengthen existing ones.
In this way, cases such as that of Clara Inés Hoyos are presented, a woman from Caquetá whose experience and history in a territory marked by violence led her to build the Association of Women Entrepreneurs Cimientos del Hogar (ASMUECH), a space in which that women harvest, cultivate and market aromatic plants and dehydrated organic essential oils not only as a sustainability option, but also as a solution for food security.
“Seeing all those women who generate transformation and the way their children, their family, their home, the farmer’s market have managed, observing the support that they offer each other, that is generating an impact. An impact that generates progress and well-being within the community”, highlights Clara Hoyos.
In this same region of the country, another story is woven, that of Yudy Figueroa, who lives in the rural area of Montañita, from where he decided to create the association Cosemos Sueños, a space that, in his words, seeks “provide income opportunities to women who do not have an ’employable’ profile”.
“Dressmaking was thought of because most of them knew something about this practice and it started with some borrowed machines”, says Yudy Figueroa. As of today, this organization has more than 10 women, who have an opportunity in clothing, to be able to grow and maintain themselves economically, but also, to maintain a community where each one of them contributes their vision of the conflict and the role of women in society.
Added to these women are the stories of other actors such as Andrea Escobar, co-founder and Director of Fundación Soydoy, an organization that aims to reduce food insecurity in Colombia; David Salas, who is the founder of somos CaPAZes, an organization that seeks to educate the Latin American community for peace in conflict prevention, management and resolution, as well as in social and environmental commitment through playful activities and reflection; Alejandro Lanz, director of Temblores, an NGO that defends the human rights of the LGBTI community; Nevis Cadena Obando, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Frutichar, a company that generates legal alternatives for environmental, sociocultural and economic sustainability for the Pacific of Nariño, among many others.
