Peruvian Jesuit organizations, led by Entreculturas-Fe y Alegría and “la Caixa” Foundation, are promoting social innovation projects in Peru

Entreculturas-Fe y Alegría has initiated the coordination of the implementation of the Work 4 Progress program funded by “la Caixa” Foundation in the provinces of Quispicanchi (Cuzco) and Condorcanqui (Amazonas), in Peru. The initiative aims to improve both individual and family incomes of women and young people of the indigenous and Amazonian rural population through innovative strategies. In addition to Peru, the Work 4 Progress program also takes place in India and Mozambique.

The Work 4 Progress program of the “la Caixa” Foundation was created with the aim of promoting projects that facilitate the employability of people in developing countries for more and better opportunities through a range of actions:

• Via a network of organizations working together to develop prototypes in the field to test their viability and thereby identify the most efficient job-creating initiatives.
• Promoting innovation in products, services and/or processes.
• Generating a new collaborative culture between organizations working in the same region in order to boost their impact and create sustainable actions.
• Incorporating new measures to constantly monitor and assess initiatives, adapting the program to the particular needs of each location in real time. This monitoring of initiatives provides more insight into the communities and assesses the impact of each action focused on improving employability.

With Work 4 Progress Peru, the “la Caixa” Foundation launches a flexible platform made up of a network of partners specialized in products and models for generating employment and income in specific groups. Institutional partners Entreculturas-Fe y Alegría and Fe y Alegría Peru have assumed the catalyst role of this platform, connecting partners and territories, and ensuring a progressive evaluation that allows the continuous improvement of the intervention and the empowerment of the populations and of local actors. The “la Caixa” Foundation promotes the program, provides the methodology and promotes synergies with the “la Caixa” volunteer program “Caixa Cooperating”.

The working program of Work 4 Progress Peru proposes a methodology of social innovation for:

• The creation of employment generation platforms, based on deliberative listening processes with the population.
• The promotion of innovation in products, services, and processes.
• The generation of a collaborative culture between organizations and territories.

With this, the program seeks to contribute to the generation of high quality employment and to improve the incomes of women and young people in Quispicanchi and Condorcanqui.

The organizations that participate in the intervention are Fe y Alegría Peru, contributing their experience in technical education for employability; the Asociación Jesús Obrero (CCAIJO), with experience in rural enterprises in the Andean region; the AVSI Foundation Peru, specialized in youth employability and productive chains; Servicio Agropecuario para la Investigación y Promoción Económica (SAIPE), experienced in rural enterprises with the Amazonian population; and the Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, specialist in innovation and entrepreneurship issues.

[This is an adapted version in English of the post published originally in Spanish in the blog of Somos Entreculturas.]