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Social Innovations in Latin America and the Caribbean

a one day symposium on social innovations organized by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)

Monday, November 22, 2010
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
UCLA Faculty Center
California Room
Los Angeles, CA United States

The Experiences in Social Innovation project is developed by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation since 2004.It aims at identifying, analyzing and disseminating innovative social development initiatives that contribute to the advancement of the Millennium Development Goals.

This approach is developed in the areas of community health, basic education, youth, nutrition, income generation, rural development, social responsibility and volunteerism. Gender mainstreaming and environmental sustainability are considered elements of central importance. The identification was accomplished through a regional contest, included remote areas. To the date we have carried out five cycles in which 4.800 initiatives of 20 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have been presented. Its fifth edition was completed in December 2009.

This symposium will present five selected projects that have demonstrated community participation,  innovativation, cost-efficiency, sustainability over time, and that have proved to be easy to replicate and be successful. They come from Belize, Brazil, Haiti and Peru and have solved problems of corruption, health, income-generation and domestic violence.

The success stories that will be examined during the seminar Social Innovation in Latin America and the Caribbean are:
 

• The Social Observatory of Maringa (Brazil) has created, with the help of volunteers, an instrument of social control to prevent the deviation or misuse of public funds, ensuring transparency in bidding processes through citizen participation (2009).
   
• The Freshwater Cup Environmental Football League (Belize) is a soccer league that motivates and commits soccer players, their families and communities with the protection of the fragile Caribbean environment (2008).
   
• Four-leaf Clover – Strategy to Reduce Maternal, Perinatal and Infant Morbimortality (Brazil) is an initiative carried out jointly by public health institutions and the community of the Brazilian city of Sobral, supporting and training mothers in breastfeeding and reducing maternal and infant mortality (2007).
   
• Community Defense Councils: A Community Response to Domestic Violence (Peru) consists of a group of women who together made significant progress in addressing and raising awareness about domestic violence from the perspective of rights, citizenship, democracy and gender equality (2006).
   
• Let Agogo (Milk in Abundance (Haiti) is an initiative of the NGO VETERIMED that improves the living conditions of farming families in Limonade through a resourceful network of 30 micro-dairies that create new jobs, many of which are held by women (2005).

 

For the symposium's schedule, please click here. 

 REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. To RSVP, please click here

Cost: Free. Registration Required

Special Instructions

Refreshments and lunch provided. Free and open to the public. Registration is required.

For more information please contact

Gloria Tovar
gtovar@international.ucla.edu

Download File: CEPALprogram.pdf

Sponsor(s): Latin American Institute, UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)