Creative & OAS partner to boost electoral monitoring

March 30, 2015

3 min read

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Creative & OAS partner to boost electoral monitoring

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Creative and the Organization of American States signed an agreement to develop handbooks and training to identify and eventually mitigate electoral threats, violence and malpractice, it was announced March 25.

Speaking at the signing ceremony on March 25, Creative President Leland Kruvant praised the partnership as another significant step toward ensuring electoral integrity and promoting good governance for Organization of American States member countries.

The Creative-OAS agreement will result in new handbooks and indicators to better asses threats to electoral integrity. — Creative President Leland Kruvant and OAS Director of the Dept. of Electoral Cooperation and Observation Gerardo de Icaza sign an agreement to boost electoral monitoring in OAS member states.

“It is an honor for Creative Associates to be a part of this important project and apply our electoral expertise to develop training curriculum to allow OAS delegations to better assess the impact of violence, malpractice and fraud on election outcomes among OAS member states,” Kruvant said.

At the partnership signing ceremony, Kruvant emphasized the importance of safeguarding elections from violence and malpractice as part of a larger mission to ensure democratic governance and meaningful citizen engagement.

Creative’s Director of Electoral Education and Integrity, Jeffrey Carlson, echoed Kruvant’s comments and stressed the importance of these new materials.

“The resulting handbooks will provide important guidance to those conducting electoral observations and to those implementing subsequent recommendations in the OAS region and beyond throughout the electoral cycle,” says Carlson.

Creative will support OAS Electoral Observer Mission teams in developing the Handbooks on Electoral Violence Observation and Malpractice Observation, which will contain integrated qualitative and quantitative indicators for assessing threats to electoral integrity, including electoral violence and malpractice.

Information gathered through these tools will better equip the OAS in making recommendations to countries whose elections it observes, says Creative’s Senior Electoral Advisor Jeff Fischer.

“This methodology will include a vulnerabilities assessment in order to identify structural, procedural or behavioral weak links in electoral integrity so that the consequences of these vulnerabilities can be flagged for scrutiny,” says Fischer.

Fischer says the methodology will help overcome challenges to identifying and tracking electoral malpractice, which is often harder to detect than electoral violence.

“While electoral violence can be monitored in real-time, that is incidents are reported when they are observed, electoral malpractice may not be obvious on the surface. Its perpetration can occur early in the electoral cycle, for example during voter registration,” says Fischer. “As a result, the consequences of fraudulent registration are seen on Election Day, but the original crime took place months before.”

In 2014, the OAS deployed nine electoral observation missions throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean. In the first three months of this year, the organization has already deployed electoral observation missions to St. Kitts and Nevis, El Salvador and Bolivia.

Electoral security expertise

Having conducted electoral security assessments in environments as diverse and challenging as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Colombia, Guatemala, the Philippines, South Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe, Creative’s Elections team has experience developing practical and accurate electoral monitoring and security frameworks.

Creative staff has also engaged in two internationally supervised electoral audits in Afghanistan and Haiti.

In partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the team, led by Fischer, published two handbooks on Best Practices in Electoral Security and an Electoral Security Framework.

These handbooks lay out approaches to identifying risk factors for electoral violence, and designing and implementing strategies to prevent, mitigate and mediate it when it does occur. Creative’s Elections team will draw on these best practices in its support to the OAS electoral violence observation methodology.

The methodology will also employ features of Creative’s “Monitoring and Observation for Violence in Elections” (MOVE) template and incorporate insights from the global survey of experts in the development of the Primer on Electoral Malpractice.

The Primer was created in collaboration with Sarah Birch, Ph.D., of the University of Glasgow, the developer of the Index of Electoral Malpractice[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Honduras: Smart private sector investments tackle violence

March 23, 2015

1 min read

Companies around Honduras are realizing that one of the smartest investments they can make is right down the road in the country’s most at-risk neighborhoods. Lowering violence and bringing opportunity to youth is good for business and even better for the future of Honduras.

A second home for Salvadoran youth

March 17, 2015

4 min read

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A second home for Salvadoran youth

By Iván Enrique Flores

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]San Salvador—In 75 crime-ridden communities throughout El Salvador, thousands of young people are getting off the streets—where gangs rule—and getting out of their houses— where poverty reigns. As they walk through the front doors of their neighborhood outreach centers, they find themselves in a second home.

“Youth out there just find violence: violence at home, violence in school. That is the reality. The outreach center is a place where youth can learn and change the reality of the streets,” says Elder Monje, a community leader in Ilobasco, a municipality outside of San Salvador.

Ilobasco is one of 13 municipalities taking part in the El Salvador Crime and Violence Prevention Project, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by Creative Associates International.

The project’s 75 outreach centers in 13 municipalities display the slogan “Mi Segunda Casa” (“My Second Home”). The outreach centers provide a safe space for young people in these at-risk neighborhoods and offer programs—including recreation, job training, tutoring, life skills support and volunteer opportunities—that keep them off the streets, where they often become victims or perpetrators of violence.

Volunteers with open arms

In at-risk areas, the outreach center provides a safe space for kids to play.

Although the outreach centers are supported by USAID, the Salvadoran government and an alliance of private sector partners, including top Salvadoran paper La Prensa Gráfica, the day-to-day activities of the centers rely on the dedication of outreach center volunteers and coordinators.

“In the morning we come to the outreach center to help,” says Alexis Ferman, an outreach center volunteer in Quezaltepeque, a municipality in the department of La Libertad near San Salvador. “All the children are already knocking on the door because they enjoy the environment in the center and like to participate in the games and lessons we prepare for them.”

From dance classes to English lessons, computer training and soccer clubs, the volunteers—many of whom are in their teens and twenties and face similar challenges to the youth they serve—keep the drumbeat of outreach center life steady.

Beyond the structured activities they manage, the volunteer coordinators say that what many youth seek and need at the outreach center is support from a caring mentor and friend.

At home, parents are sometimes absent or do not understand the challenges their kids are facing, says Armando Gutierrez, a community leader in Cojutepeque, the capital of the Cuscatlán department, 23 miles from San Salvador.

“Here at the outreach center, they have found all of that,” he says. “There’s always someone who has time for them and talks with them.”

Living in communities with higher than average levels of homicide and climbing rates of immigration as people seek an escape from poverty and violence, many young people in these neighborhoods may be coping with the loss of family or friends to the violence epidemic or immigration. These are issues outreach center coordinators frequently encounter.

“I am always going to listen to them. I am always there for my beneficiaries,” says Karla Portillo, outreach center Coordinator in the southern coastal city of La Unión. “This center’s doors are always open for them. They already know this is their second home. For many of them this is their first home.”

Second home, second chance

In outreach centers, youth take classes in music, English and job skills and get support from mentors to develop plans to meet their goals.

For the most vulnerable youth in El Salvador’s most crime-plagued and poverty-stricken barrios, a second home means more than just a place of security. It can mean a second chance at life.

This was the case for Marili Umanzor, who found support from her neighborhood outreach center in La Unión after her parents were killed in a car accident.

“I never had anyone to look after me after that [accident],” she says. “The outreach center coordinator has become my mother because she cares for me and loves me. I have a reason to live now because I have “siblings” here.”

Outreach center coordinators throughout the country are reporting success for youth like Marili and are seeing fewer young people in the streets and more in the centers.

“They have made this place their home,” says Amelia Marroquín, outreach center Coordinator in Nejapa, a municipality in the department of San Salvador. “This is the ideal space for an adolescent; not the street corner.”

Rubén Alejando, a beneficiary of the center in Nejapa, agrees. In fact, he says, his peers are now joining the outreach center’s activities and have “exchanged cigarettes for pencils.”

They are “changing for good,” he says.

Edited by Jillian Slutzker[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

New Honduran outreach center rallies a neighborhood

March 17, 2015

4 min read

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New Honduran outreach center rallies a neighborhood

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]In an historic presidential visit to the city of La Lima—the first in nearly two decades—Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández joined community members to inaugurate a new youth outreach center.

Taking the podium to congratulate the community on the new outreach center, President Hernández emphasized his administration’s support for investments in violence and crime prevention, particularly at the local level.

President Juan Orlando Hernández said that community investment in violence prevention is key.

“We are betting on prevention to reduce violence. To restore peace and tranquility there are two sides: that of justice and prevention. To the first side, we are assuming our commitment; but on the other one, we need to work together with the community,” President Hernández said at the March 12 inauguration.

The newly constructed youth outreach center in the neighborhood called the 23rd of September will provide a safe space for young people in the crime-ridden area and offer programs including tutoring, sports clubs, life skills and job training. It is the 42nd such center in Honduras.

Making community-based crime and violence prevention a national priority, the Honduran government has stepped up its funding for youth-focused initiatives, pledging $1 million to the construction and support of youth outreach centers through the national security-trust tax fund. The initiate is in partnership with Alianza Joven Honduras—a youth crime and violence prevention program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by Creative Associates International.

Across Central America, 217 youth outreach centers are keeping young people off the streets—where they become victims and perpetrators of crime—and bringing them opportunity and hope.

In Honduras, 42 outreach centers supported through Alianza Joven Honduras have been inaugurated. An additional four centers, will officially open their doors in San Pedro Sula, Tegucigalpa and Choloma communities over the next few months, although some activities have already been underway in the centers.

For more stories and videos, check out our Special Report Honduras: Young Lives in the Balance

Local investment for long-term results

Youth and community volunteers from the 23rd of September neighborhood celebrate the outreach center’s opening.

With an eye towards sustainability, the 23rd of September center is largely funded and supported by the national government and municipality of La Lima. The new center received $25,000 in support from the government security-trust tax fund and an additional $2,000 from USAID. The government’s Director of Youth will sponsor the new center’s gym, along with the gym of eight other outreach centers around the country.

The municipality of La Lima has to date contributed more than $30,000 to the center’s construction, along with contributions from the private sector. Local internet company, TIGO, will be providing the center with free service.

Members of the neighborhood pitched in with their time and labor to help construct the center, recognizing the need for a safe space for the community’s kids. The community’s backing is a key ingredient for the center’s success, says Salvador Stadthagen, director of Alianza Joven Honduras.

“An outreach center is only possible if a city, a community partner, is determined to fight for a better future for the lives of children and youth,” Stadthagen said at the center’s inauguration ceremony.

“In this center, wills converged—a mayor who believes in prevention and has even traveled abroad to see models that work; a president who is making history and who believes in prevention and shows it; and a community that wants change and has the volunteers willing to make a difference and make something special,” he said.

Volunteerism and community-leadership is at the core of the outreach center methodology.

The new center, which will be operated by the COMVIDA Municipal Program (Programa Municipal de Infancia y Juventud-Municipal Program for Childhood and Youth) will receive support from the Community Board for the Improvement of the 23rd of September Neighborhood and local faith-based organizations.

The center’s coordinator, Susana Rivera, will ensure that the operations and activities of the center are in full swing, with the help of the first eight active volunteers from the community who have already received training.

Supporting dreams

President Juan Orlando Hernández commended community members for their role in violence prevention at the 23rd of September outreach center opening.

The 23rd of September outreach center will be more than just a safe space for youth in this poverty-stricken community, it will empower them with the skills and tools needed to chart a life plan and achieve their goals.

“There will be a large menu of opportunities for young people, “said Kurt Pope, deputy director of USAID in Honduras, speaking at the center’s inauguration.

The center will also launch an intensive mentorship program called the “Dreaming My Life Challenge,” which will involve at least 200 youth in the neighborhood. With young adults serving as mentors to vulnerable youth, program participants will chart out Life Plans that map out their goals and pathways to realize them.

The Challenge of Dreaming My Life initiative builds on previous violence prevention activities in the neighborhood supported by the Vice-Minister of Security for Prevention, including a Virtues in My Home workshop implemented by community volunteers.

COMVIDA-La Lima will also equip young people with the tools and knowledge they need for success through sexual and reproductive health training support, communications workshops, entrepreneurship training and art lessons.

The center will welcome even those youth who had been caught up in the drugs and crime wave that has swept their neighborhood but who had the courage of leaving that path. The center offers a second chance at a better life, says Stadthagen.

“The outreach centers are not against anyone,” he said. “They are only meant to bring more opportunities to children and youth in these communities.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

U.S. Senators visit Outreach Center that United a Community

February 19, 2015

3 min read

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U.S. Senators visit Outreach Center that United a Community

By Jennifer Brookland

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]U.S. Senators John Cornyn, R-TX, and Tim Kaine, D-VA, joined U.S. Ambassador to Honduras James Nealon and the USAID Mission Director James Watson on a visit to the Suyapa, Chamelecón Outreach Center in San Pedro Sula—a place that has emerged from violence to unite a community.

“Suyapa is a very special neighborhood,” says Salvador Stadthagen, who directs Creative’s Alianza Joven-Honduras project. “Really violent—but getting better.”

He says the Youth Outreach Center there, part of Creative’s larger USAID-funded violence prevention working in the country’s most at-risk communities, was a paradigm of participatory development, and a major victory in bringing people together.

Stadthagen recalls one night when people came together to remodel and paint the center, and stayed until 3 a.m.

Everyone from the Catholic parish to the Community Board, local schools, community members old and young, the Municipality, the Office of Youth and even the Central Government were enthusiastically involved in creating and sustaining the center.

It now boasts 32 volunteers and includes a gym and, more generally, a space where young people can feel safe and productive.

The Senators met with staff, volunteers and the children who benefit from getting everything from computer classes and ping pong tournaments to homework help, vocational skills and a positive outlook on
their futures.

“It was an excellent visit that I believe both Senators, the Ambassador and MD enjoyed,” Stadthagen says.

A violent beginning

Father Luis was lukewarm about the Suyapa Outreach Center at first, just as the neighborhood may have been lukewarm about him. The church’s credibility there had waned in recent years, and church activities had dwindles. Even the traditional anniversary of the Virgin, a national holiday in Honduras, had not been celebrated in Suyapa for years.

But just before the opening of the center in Oct., 2014, two prosecutors were murdered in San Pedro Sula. The police had information that the suspected killers were in Suyapa.

Police responded to the killings by surrounding the neighborhood and before long the town was at the center of a shoot-out. Two policemen were wounded and the gang they were up against was ready to keep fighting.

But instead, the gang’s leader picked up the phone.

He called the Coordinator of the Outreach Center, who is also the local leader of the Catholic community in Suyapa, and asked for the church to intervene. A call to Creative’s San Pedro Sula office manager and an emergency phone call to Father Luis brought the young priest to Suyapa to help mediate.

He successfully ended the standoff. The gang members surrendered.

That night put Father Luis on the path to being a valued, even heralded part of the Suyapa community. But it also showed the priest how essential it was for people to come together to address the violence that was making it impossible for neighborhoods to function and for young people to live meaningful lives.

Your second home

Now a huge proponent of the Outreach Center, Father Luis met with the Congressional Delegation during their Feb. 17, 2015 visit, and spoke in Spanish with Senator Kaine, who previously did a sabbatical in El Progresso, Honduras.

Senator Kaine posted about the visit on his website.

Both Senators were guided around the center by a boy who epitomizes what the Outreach Centers like the one in Suyapa can do for young people and their families.

Mired in the common economic and social challenges of single parenthood and poverty, 12-year-old Dennis practically lives at the Suyapa Outreach Center. But that’s okay. In fact, the Outreach Center motto is “Tu segunda casa!”—your second home. For Dennis, it’s practically his first.

Dennis helps out at the center by volunteering. His responsibility: to help maintain order when it comes to use of the coveted foosball table.

In a video by popular Honduran blogger Lipstick Fables, Dennis proudly spins around to show off his volunteer t-shirt before he wends through the Outreach Center corridors, excitedly showing off the new computer lab, classrooms and gym, and introducing other friends and volunteers.

During the Congressional Delegation to his Outreach Center, though, he got to play the even more coveted role of tour guide to those who could bring the message of the Outreach Centers’ significance back to the United States.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Government relations & development expert joins Creative Associates International

February 16, 2015

2 min read

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Government relations & development expert joins Creative Associates International

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Feb. 16, 2015—Global development expert and government affairs leader Timothy Kernan joins Creative Associates International as Director of Executive Operations, the global development company announced. (www.CreativeAssociatesInternational.com)

An experienced executive in strategic management and building partnerships with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department and Congress, Kernan will support Creative’s Washington, DC-based leadership as it continues to grow the company’s successful programs, maximizes support for beneficiaries and strengthens client relationships.

“Tim has the experience and passion that smart international development requires,” says Leland Kruvant, President of Creative. “He will be an asset for our staff, clients, implementing partners and, most of all, the communities we serve.”

Prior to joining Creative, Kernan was Chief of Staff and Senior Director of External Relations at Development Alternatives Inc., where he managed stakeholder relationships, particularly with USAID, on large-scale development projects from Afghanistan to Burma, Haiti and Jordan. Kernan also helped to launch the Council of International Development Companies, a voice of for-profit development organizations. (http://www.cidc.us/) In addition, he has extensive experience as a professional staff member in Congress.

As Managing Director of the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, a coalition of more than 400 prominent organizations advocating increased funding for the U.S. international affairs budget, Kernan spearheaded a government relations plan that helped secure the approval by Congress of the largest increase in the U.S. international affairs budget in a decade.

“My prior experience working with USAID and other implementers has taught me one valuable lesson,” says Kernan. “It is the passion to improve the world, often in challenging locations, that serves as the common thread among all development stakeholders, whether you are donors, government officials or implementers. Understanding this basic principal, I believe, is essential for us to succeed in our mission.”

Kernan holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, as well as a Marketing Certificate from Columbia University.

About Creative Associates International

Creative Associates International works with underserved communities by sharing expertise and experience in education, economic growth, governance and transitions from conflict to peace.

Based in Washington, D.C., Creative has active projects in more than 15 countries. Since 1977, it has worked in nearly 90 countries and on almost every continent. Recognized for its ability to work rapidly, flexibly and effectively in conflict-affected environments, Creative is committed to generating long-term sustainable solutions to complex development problems.

Started by four enterprising women with diverse backgrounds, Creative has grown to become one of the leaders among the U.S. private sector implementers of global development projects. Creative is minority owned and operated.

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Honduras: Faith, hope and rollerblades for kids in Honduras

February 13, 2015

1 min read

Can a pair of rollerblades be more powerful than drugs and gangs? Kids in one of the most dangerous cities in Honduras are strapping on skates to fight violence and show their community how young people can be a force for positive change.

Honduras: Outreach centers, “hope in the storm” for Honduran youth

February 13, 2015

1 min read

Amidst a storm of gang, drugs and violence, youth in at-risk neighborhoods are finding security, opportunity and hope at nearly 50 community outreach centers around Honduras. From English classes to sports and job training, these centers are preventing violence and changing lives.

Honduras: Singer amplifies powerful peace message to fans

February 10, 2015

1 min read

A microphone is a powerful tool, and Honduran pop singer Eduardo Umanzor is using his to bring music, fun and inspiration to the most at-risk communities. See how the sound of hope resonates across the country.

School bus & teens drive Honduras anti-violence movement

February 10, 2015

5 min read

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School bus & teens drive Honduras anti-violence movement

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]San Pedro Sula, Honduras—A colorfully painted refurbished school bus arrives in Chamelecón, one of San Pedro Sula’s most at-risk neighborhoods, and a dozen teenagers in matching orange, green and blue t-shirts pile out. They are members of Jóvenes Contra la Violencia (the Youth against Violence movement), and they have an important message for kids in this high-crime community.

“One of the goals, which is essential for us, is to reduce violence in the country,” says Cecilio Torres, a leader of the movement in the city of Choloma and a former gang member. “We create prevention with messages of peace, campaigns and talks in schools and colleges to change ideologies as this wave of violence that is destroying our country.”

The multicolor bus, which the group drives around the country, is painted with anti-violence signs on the outside and, inside, displays graffiti-like messages of nonviolence illuminated with black lights and disco balls.

As kids tour the bus’s three sections, the movement’s members engage them in conversations about Honduras’s epidemic levels of violence, how to prevent this and how to become agents of positive change in their communities. As they leave the bus, kids write down one way they will make a difference in the fight against violence.

The 20-minute experience is intense and eye-opening.

For many, it is personal as they have already lost friends and family to the violence, largely driven by drugs and gangs.

Esther Ochoa knows what that is like. In 2008, one of her best friends became another victim of violence. She says that even after her friend’s death, she still did not fully realize the extent of Honduras’s violence epidemic until she joined the movement.

Now the Coordinator of the Tegucigalpa chapter, Ochoa is reaching out to educate and empower others so they do not have to experience the pain she did.

“We work in the area of violence prevention, giving these young people opportunities, saying that yes, there is a tomorrow,” says Ochoa. “We teach them not only how to the work for Youth against Violence, but how they can also work from their communities; from their families—because that is where our work begins.”

A transformative campaign

HON10091436 The movement was born in Guatemala in 2009 as part of the Guatemala Youth Challenge Program, a youth violence prevention program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by Creative Associates International.

Today the movement works in seven Central American countries. In Honduras, it receives support from the private sector, the government and Alianza Joven Honduras (Youth Alliance Honduras), a youth violence prevention program run by USAID and Creative, in partnership with the Honduran government..

“Youth against Violence began in Honduras with a massive call, something never before seen on the part of youth,” says Santiago Avila, National Coordinator of the movement. “It was a call answered by thousands of young people who decided to say ‘yes to life, no to violence.’”

The group began as a close-knit team of youth with a big idea. Avila says, “for me was at first a family; a family in which volunteers invest their time, their ideas and their talents and began to propose ideas that at one point we saw as a dream.”

Today, he says, this dream has become a reality as the movement has coalesced into a strong organization reaching some of the most vulnerable youth and communities. The movement, he says, is a pioneer, transforming the way society views youth and the conversation around violence prevention.

“I remember three or four years ago in the country, we spoke very little about violence prevention. It was even less likely that young people would start talking about violence prevention,” says Avila.

In an environment where young people are both the primary victims and perpetrators of crime, having a candid, nationwide conversation about youth and with youth on this issues is critical. Avila is clear that the movement is not out to shame youth offenders, but rather to address the factors that lead them to commit these acts.

“We are against violence. We believe that all young people, including young people who have committed unlawful acts have a way out of this.”

Broadcasting nonviolence

HON10091485 Guiding kids through tours aboard the movement’s bus is only one of many methods the group deploys to get their message out.

Since 2012, the group started its own television program, which airs nationally once a week and is often re-broadcast during the week. The show is filmed live on Saturdays in Tegucigalpa and is available online. A few local chapters have developed their own TV and radio programs.

Ochoa, the Coordinator of the Tegucigalpa chapter, oversees the national show, taking on a multifaceted role. Everyone involved in the production is young.

“We are cameramen. We are presenters and editors. We are everything within the program, but we know that at the same time this helps us develop many skills in professional life,” she says.

Each episode presents different risk factors for violence in a “youthful way” with music, games and entertainment, Ochoa says, which resonates with her peers around the country. The show’s hosts discuss how to combat risk factors to avoid getting caught up in violence.

A ripple effect

HON10091409 The activities of the Youth against Violence movement are the means of delivering a powerful message, but, as Avila explains, they are not the ends.

The bus, TV show and other campaigns are important because of their power to reach many people, he says, but what they really seek is to “to generate processes in which the main objective is to achieve empowerment and local capacity.”

Avila says he and his fellow members aspire to spark a change in every young person they reach in communities around the country so that they become agents of positive change and messengers of nonviolence.

Those in their teens and twenties are not the only ones with potential to spark this chain of transformation, they believe.

Torres, a leader in Choloma, launched the “Mini-Buzos,” a movement of children dedicated to fighting violence alongside their older counterparts. With Torres’s support, the Mini-Buzos lead campaigns of to educate their peers and community, including a campaign spreading hugs and messages of peace to friends and neighbors.

The work in not only changing the Mini-Buzos and their communities, but Torres, a former gang member, is finding purpose as well.

“On a daily basis, I am motivating and encouraging them to always support the community to do things for young people,” says Torres. “Our work here is quite different from other places because it is a youth organization for youth.”

With reporting by Emanuel Rodriguez in Honduras.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Smart private sector investments tackle violence

February 10, 2015

By Jillian Slutzker

4 min read

Factories, or maquiladoras, dot the highways around this city, as well as its better-known neighbor of San Pedro Sula. Surrounding these powerhouses of Honduras’s export sector are some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the Western Hemisphere.

“Choloma is a city with a high violence rate, and we have a very good part of our employees that live here and their families,” says Paola Villanueva, Communications Manager for Gildan, an international clothing manufacturer with four facilities and more than 24,000 employees in the country.

The national homicide rate in Honduras was 83 per 100,000 residents in 2013, and levels soar even higher in the most at-risk neighborhoods plagued by gang violence. For Gildan and other private firms working in these areas, taking action to stem the violence has become a company priority.

“It’s really important that our employees know and feel that their kids are safe when they’re working and they have a place to be away from gangs or violence,” she says.

To create these safe spaces and, in turn, more secure neighborhoods and places of business, Gildan and other companies are teaming up with Alianza Joven Honduras (Honduras Youth Alliance), a youth violence prevention program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by Creative Associates International.

The business of opportunity

With 46 youth outreach centers around the country in the most high-crime neighborhoods, Alianza Joven Honduras is a natural partner for businesses seeking to improve security and bring opportunity to the communities in which they operate.

“There’s not a lot of initiatives like this here in Honduras. So we saw this and we decided it was time for us as a private corporation to get involved,” says Julissa Ustariz, Director of the Lady Lee foundation—the philanthropic arm of Corporation Lady Lee, which owns real estate, malls and chain restaurants throughout the country.

The program’s outreach centers provide at-risk youth with safe spaces for recreation and opportunities including life skills, job training, tutoring and volunteer work.

Through its partnership with Alianza Joven, the Lady Lee Foundation has supported a national holiday toy drive benefiting the centers, a recycling program and several of the centers’ gyms where youth and community members exercise.

Ustariz notes that the company’s involvement in the program has benefits for brand loyalty, but more importantly, she says, Lady Lee’s support through the outreach centers has empowered neighborhood residents to “get involved in their community and work towards something positive in their community.”

The centers, which are jointly funded by USAID, the Honduran government, foundations and private sector partners, are based on a low-cost model, so support from companies can go a long way, says Salvador Stadthagen, Director of Alianza Joven Honduras.

The centers’ activities are sustained by committed community volunteers, many of whom are youth who have benefited from the centers’ violence prevention work.

Cecilio Torres, for example, is one of these volunteers. Kicked out of the house by his mother’s boyfriend at age 10, he found himself out on the streets with no opportunities except joining a gang to survive.

Now living a life free of crime at age 22 and a beneficiary of the outreach center methodology, Torres mentors younger children through his López Arellano neighborhood outreach center in Choloma to keep them out of gangs and off the streets.

“For us it’s also really important to see how the community is committed to be part of the project,” says Villanueva. “That was one of the things that we liked about it.”

Among other initiatives, Gildan’s team funded the construction of a sports court at the Exitos de Anach outreach center near one of its factories in Choloma.

Changing attitudes & environments

Although the distance between Honduras’s most at-risk, impoverished areas and its higher income neighborhoods is short, the gulf between residents of the two places can be vast, explains Graco Parades, Director of Corporate Affairs for Cervecería Hondureña, the country’s largest beverage bottling firm.

When Cervecería Hondureña joined Alianza Joven Honduras’s efforts, Parades decided to attend an inauguration ceremony for a new outreach center in the Chamelecón region. The company often provides support for the community celebrations to launch new centers.

“I’ve heard about [Chamelecón]. I’ve seen it in the news, but I’ve never been there. And when you read about it, most of the time or you see in the news, it’s basically bad news. It’s violence,” he says.

Parades’s friends, family and colleagues expressed concern for his upcoming visit and his safety. But his experience at the outreach center told a different story.

“It was a very nice feeling to actually be there and that people who were just like us live there and people that want an opportunity to live in peace were there,” he says.

During the inauguration ceremony, among the speeches, cheers and dance performances, he says, there was a lot of excitement, hope and motivation.

“We saw color again,” says Parades. “I mean, it was a very nice place to be and we saw happiness there. So I think positive things are starting to happen.”

As more private sector partners step up to support violence prevention efforts through Alianza Joven Honduras and other initiatives, the more positive change communities and companies are witnessing.

“I think lately we’ve seen a whole window, door, everything that opened with la empresa privada [the private sector],” says Ustariz. “We can’t wait for people from outside to come and help us. We also have to do our part, whether it’s on a personal level or on a business level, any kind of level, and get involved directly with the community.”

With reporting by Emanuel Rodriguez in Honduras.

Honduras: Targeted prevention brings kids back from the brink

February 10, 2015

1 min read

Youth on the verge of joining violent gangs are the most at-risk and often the hardest to reach. Targeted secondary prevention gets to the heart of the problem, helping families and kids move away from the brink of violence.