Social Entrepreneurs and Sustainability

“Often society blames young people for instigating conflicts, when they are in reality the mirror of society. They reflect back to us what we don’t want to see, and as a society what we don’t want to aknowledge.” – Nelsa Curbelo

Nelsa Curbelo is a women that I truly admire, she was nominated twice for a Nobel Peace Prize and I had the honor to have her as a professor a few years ago in the university. She is specialized in Human Rights and conflict management, being the last one the course she gave me. She talked to us about her project called “Ser Paz” (Being Peace) and the work she does with gang in my city, Guayaquil.

Fundación Ser Paz

This NGO was founded in 1999 and works with youngsters to create the so called “Barrios de Paz” or Peace Towns, by providing them alternative roads from violence. The plan focuses on 49 blocks in a conflicting and insecure zone of the city, where around 1,000 families live and 5 different gangs are located. The gang members can participate in mediation workshops and community development training to put an end to the rivalry that lies within them. In this workshops they have to come up with ideas to bring peace to the community, but they also brainstorm to think about their future business thanks to the education they receive in microenterprises.The workshops are in school hours but Nelsa also has sessions during the weekends with the parents, informal teachers and young people who dropped out of school.

Another way of offering non-violent activities is through sports. With the creation of the program “Tarjeta Roja a la Violencia” (Red Card to Violence) the youngsters play street football with their own made-up rules approved by all players. There is no referee, they have to comply with the rules or raise the hand when somebody is not following them. The objective is to evaluate their performance based on values and not goals, to reach agreements, to respect the rules and your apponent, just to name a few.

There are other programs and ideas to be developed, but the two mentioned before are the main ones. If you are interested in learning more about Fundación Ser Paz (in spanish), please click here.

The lady behind the idea

Nelsa Curbelo is Uruguayan-Ecuadorian, she is a charismatic 71 year-old woman with a vibrant spirit. Former nun and school teacher, has worked with indigenous, young people and communities during her life. In 2000 she was recognized by Ashoka as Social Entrepreneur and then named as “fellow” for this reason. Her work and effort was compensated with many other recognitions and awards, like Dra. Honoris Causa by the Universitat Ramon Llull (URL) in Barcelona.

She sees in young people the future, but in Ecuador the majority live in poor conditions and expelled from society. For her is important that people understand that not every gangster is a criminal, some are just looking for someone to care about them and that provides a sense of belonging. She want to use the positive characteristics of their beviour like team work, frienship and solidarity, as drivers of social change. In the following video Nelsa explains why gangs are formed.

How sustainable is the NGO?

From the 60,000 gangsters in the city, she has helped around 5,000 and now other cities and countries want to start a similar project. Pizza places, music studios, hair salons and 7 other microenterprises have been created. Everything seems to work, but I have identified a few issues.

Nelsa has the social entrepreneur profile: the motivation to solve a social issue, passionate, visionary with holistic solutions, innovative, determined, and persevering. Her idea is replicable and scalable, nevertheless I don’t think is economically sustainable. She mostly relies on the Ministry of Labour to provide the funding for the workshops and the microenterprises and in 2009 they almost had to close the foundation because the government stopped giving them money despite the written agreement. Apparently in the end they didn’t close because there are recent articles about Ser Paz.

Hopefully this will not happen again, but unless they manage to generate their own income, the odds are probably not good. This is why business skills are imporant for a social entrepreneur. Maybe the people who manage to create their businesses can start paying back with small montly contributions, and people who attend the workshops can do the same. The government can hire gang members to work as advisors for decisions in policy-making, or even with local police to create a bond between them find, analyze the insecurity issues and work together in the solutions. The mediation workshops and the experience of bringing together the rival gangs will be useful in this case.

Another issue that I see is sustainability in terms of leadership. Can they continue without Nelsa? She is the mind, heart and soul of the NGO, she is known as the “grandma of the gangsters” because that is how close their relationship is. They really care about her and would literally die to protect her. She has gone throught many dangerous situations, but her strong character has saved her every time. She is training teachers and doing many things to expand the project, but she also needs to find someone who can walk at her side and win the respect of the gangs.

Comments Off on Social Entrepreneurs and Sustainability / 28 Mar 2014 por yvonneroca
IMSD /

Comentarios cerrados.