Strong growth and private sector are keys to stability

March 28, 2014

5 min read

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Strong growth and private sector are keys to stability

By Maggie Farrand

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Charito Kruvant (second from left) speaks on a panel at this week's Making Markets Work event, hosted by Creative. — Creative President & CEO Charito Kruvant (second from left) speaks on a panel at the Making Markets Work event, hosted by Creative.

With 80 percent of overseas spending now coming from foreign direct investment, the role of private sector in driving economic development is no longer optional, said former U.S. Ambassador James Michel at the March 26 Making Markets Work event, hosted by Creative Associates International.

“Private sector engagement has become so important in part because of the shift in development finance,” he said. To private sector businesses, developing countries are becoming increasingly attractive investment destinations.

Michel emphasized that not just any private sector involvement will do. “Private business needs to integrate with national plans,” he said. “The consideration of the local environment is just essential, and they have to bring in the abilities of domestic resources.”

Michel joined U.S. Ambassador Robin Raphel and John Sullivan on a panel titled “Governance and the Evolving Role of Private Sector in Market Stabilization and International Development,” moderated by Creative’s Deborah Kimble. It was one of three panel presentations at the event, which marks the one-year anniversary of Creative’s Economic Growth Division.

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It’s Time to Change the Narrative on Women and Security

March 25, 2014

4 min read

This blog originally appeared on the Building Peace Forum. You can view the original, posted in March 2014, here.

This year, the United Nations declared “inspiring change” as the theme of its activities for International Women’s Day (March 8) in order to commemorate the evolving role of women globally. It is especially appropriate since it is time to change the narrative that emphasizes women as victims and passive actors in their communities.

With the attention focused on the protection of women in conflict, specifically from gender-based violence that remains prevalent in many parts of the globe, it is often easy to overlook the on-the-ground realities that women in war zones face daily. Security Council resolutions make it appear that victimhood is the issue. Aside from the landmark declaration of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in October 2000, which brought attention to the salience of having women at the peace table and in conflict prevention, the focus of this and other non-binding resolutions reflect a strategic blindness about how women actively participate in any society.

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Honduras: Youth centers receive financial boost

March 24, 2014

3 min read

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Honduras: Youth centers receive financial boost

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San Pedro Sula, Honduras—President Juan Orlando Hernandez presented checks to 14 Youth Outreach Centers here as part of a new and innovative government initiative to use money confiscated from drug traffickers to support prevention programs.

During a March 20 event, President Hernandez handed out $2,750 to each of the 14 Outreach Centers in this industrial city from the Office for the Management of Impounded Assets. The event was attended by 200 community members, elected officials and representatives from the private sector.

The Alianza Joven Honduras’s Youth Outreach Centers are playing a critical role in the country’s efforts to prevent an increase of violence and crime, and the Office for the Management of Impounded Assets has been working with Creative to support the centers.

Pablo Maldonado, Creative’s Chief Operating Officer who attended the event, expressed his appreciation for the Honduran government’s contribution to the centers.

In addition to the financial benefit, Maldonado said the presidential support of the program triggers “a new modality of partnership with the host country government,” including new levels of cooperation with the Ministry of Security and local governments, and the opening of doors to other prerogatives, such as selected access to confiscated assets.

“We are cognizant that the federal government has limited Lempiras,” Maldonado said, referring to Honduras’s currency. “For the government to have considered Creative’s program worthy of its support speaks to the value and effectiveness of our prevention efforts. We are honored by the recognition.”

U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Lisa Kubiske, who also attended the ceremony, applauded President Hernandez’s fight against crime and his support for the Outreach Centers.

“For my government, the topic of crime and violence prevention is a priority,” U.S. Ambassador Kubiske said. “We are conscious of the importance of finding local solutions that can be converted to national responses.”

President Hernandez thanked the United States for its support of prevention programs in Honduras, particularly the Alianza Joven Honduras activities.

“We appreciate the support of [the U.S. Ambassador] and the people of the United States,” President Hernandez said. “We know that these good practices that we are implementing will help Honduras.”

The Honduran government’s funding will go directly to the Youth Outreach Centers and related municipal authorities, not Creative or USAID, said Salvador Stadthagen, who leads Creative’s program in Honduras.

The event was also attended by Vice Minister of Security in Prevention Alejandra Hernández, the Mayors of San Pedro Sula and Choloma and 160 other government and Outreach Center representatives from across Honduras.

Creative’s Alianza Joven Honduras program partners with municipal governments to empower youth, their families and communities to prevent and address violence in their neighborhoods.

The Honduran program deepens the achievements of the USAID Regional Youth Alliance Program, which established Outreach Centers in high violence communities in Guatemala, El Salvador and Panama from 2008 to 2011.

Alianza Joven Honduras uses outreach centers to counter identified risk factors that leave youth vulnerable to violence—like low-quality education and a lack of positive role models—and bolster protective factors like values, job training and academic reinforcement instead.

By operating microenterprises like small fitness centers, silk-screening shops and bakeries, the outreach centers not only provide vocational skills and confidence, but profits that make them self-sustaining.

Additional Honduran Support

Separately, the Honduran government is supporting the Youth Outreach Centers through a $1 million contribution, which will be disbursed during the next 12 months. The first installment of $400,000 was provided in February.

Honduras made financial commitments to Alianza Joven Honduras through an innovative security tax levied on the private sector, which also supports the program in grand scale. The $1 million contribution is being matched by the U.S. government at a 2:1 ratio.

The Committee of the Tax Security Trust Fund decided to support Creative’s program based on what it deemed a “successful” methodology of engaging youth in educational, vocational, recreational and other activities, according to the grant agreement. It wrote that additional funds would enable Alianza Joven Honduras to reach a larger number of beneficiaries with added and more diverse activities.

“This is a great accomplishment, and it is important to highlight the new administration’s willingness to cooperate with us in these efforts,” says Stadthagen. “The ultimate beneficiaries are youth, their families, and the communities they live in.”[/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 gives $1 million to expand youth centers

March 24, 2014

3 min read

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Honduras gives $1 million to expand youth centers

By Creative Associates International

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Tegucigalpa, Honduras—The Honduran government has contributed part of its $1 million commitment in support of community focused Youth Outreach Centers, an initiative designed to prevent violence by providing a positive place for young people to gather, learn and grow.

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández delivered a $400,000 check at a Youth Outreach Center in a Tegucigalpa neighborhood called La Colonia Los Estados Unidos.

“We have taken another step in the construction of a different Honduras, a peaceful and tranquil Honduras,” President Hernandez said at the Feb. 14 ceremony. “I know it is not easy to think of this immediately, but God willing together we can do it.”

The Youth Outreach Centers were developed by Creative Associates International’s Alianza Joven Honduras program, which is supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The Honduran government’s contribution will support the current 44 Youth Outreach Centers in five cities—San Pedro Sula, Choloma, La Ceiba, Puerto Lempira and Tegucigalpa—and help to create another 10.

The Alianza Joven Honduras’s Youth Outreach Centers are playing a critical role in the country’s efforts to prevent an increase of violence and crime.

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Female-targeted development programs are seen differently by researchers & implementers

March 17, 2014

3 min read

Caption — Initiatives thought to be cut and dry for reducing poverty might not always be that way. Rekha Mehra believes implementers should always revert back to the research. © David Snyder

As a development practitioner, how often have you wished you had a practical and proven tool to reduce poverty? Targeting women has been a simple and effective strategy to meet this goal.

Convincing evidence of this approach is found in conditional cash transfer programs, which are now widely used in more than 30 countries.

For example, through the Bolsa Familia in Brazil, poor households are given regular cash payments if they agree to set requirements—such as keeping children in school and taking them for regular medical check-ups. Money is provided mainly to women in these households since studies show they will more likely spend it on children.

The program is credited with reducing poverty. Factors contributing to success are sound implementation, scale in reaching 13.8 million families (one-fourth of the poor) and the availability of health and education services to meet the demand created by the program.

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No books, no problem: Empowering Teachers with Mobile Technology

March 12, 2014

3 min read

From February 17 to 21, more than 500 people representing NGOs, governments, private companies and donors gathered in Paris for Mobile Learning Week—an annual conference held by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to discuss how mobile technologies can advance the international goal of Education for All.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Empowering Teachers with Technology.” It focused on exploring how mobile technologies can help teachers work more effectively and, as a result, improve learning outcomes.

As part of Mobile Learning Week, Creative presented a demo of CreativeU, the online and mobile learning platform we’ll launch this spring.

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Committed to development, despite danger

March 5, 2014

4 min read

Corina López de Mena is the Donations Coordinator for the Crime and Violence Prevention Project in El Salvador. In honor of International Women’s Day 2014, we asked for her thoughts on women in her country and her profession, and what inspires her.

Question: Please explain in what ways your program involves women.

Answer: Our program in El Salvador focuses on crime and violence prevention at the municipal and community level in 20 municipalities and more than 115 communities throughout the country.

Many women who live in these communities are actively participating in our program activities. They identify problem areas that need to be addressed by the program and activities that will contribute to achieve the main project goal, which is to prevent youth from participating in crime related activities.

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An uphill battle worth fighting

March 5, 2014

3 min read

Noy Villalobos

Noy Villalobos is the Chief of Party for the CONVIVE! program in Honduras. In honor of International Women’s Day 2014, we asked for her thoughts on women in her country and her profession, and what inspires her.

Question: Please explain in what ways your program involves women.

Answer: Simply put, our program would fail without women. Women in the communities we serve are the glue that binds them. The program is promoting the adoption of non-traditional roles for women and emboldening them to become decision-makers. Women as heads of schools, patronato representatives, directors of health posts, church leaders, and members of the police, among many others, are at the vanguard in combating violence at the local level, restoring communities’ sense of normalcy, pride and dignity. Our program recognizes their immense potential, talent and resourcefulness to serve as community mobilizers and build the relationships with government institutions to benefit their development and safety.

Q: As a woman, what is it like to work on these issues?

A: Working on these issues is a remarkable opportunity and an exciting challenge. Leading a team to improve and strengthen the male-dominated security sector through the exploration of new approaches and non-traditional tactics to reduce violence is at times an uphill battle. It requires determination, passion and continued evaluation, assessment and re-direction. The methods used in the past have not proven to be the most efficient or productive, but combined with new ideas, or innovative approaches, we are having a positive effect. In driving these ideas forward, as a woman, I make a conscious effort to be sensitive to the direct and indirect impact of these actions on families and especially women, who are more frequently becoming victims of violence in Honduras.

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Pinpointing risk, strengthening families to reduce violence

February 6, 2014

4 min read

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Pinpointing risk, strengthening families to reduce violence

By Jennifer Brookland

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Panel at the Youth & Secondary Prevention Roundtable.

A panel of experts exploring youth violence reduction models used in Los Angeles and a new pilot program in Honduras say targeted approaches that focus on at-risk families are more likely to get communities closer to achieving that goal.

“Over the years, we’ve looked at the problem through a wide-angle lens and come up with big solutions, and we’ve looked through a close-up lens and come up with individual solutions,” says Guillermo Cespedes, Creative Associates International’s Senior Associate for Crime and Violence and Prevention. “This model also looks in the middle,” referring to an approach used in Los Angeles since 2007.

Speaking at a roundtable organized by Creative, the model Cespedes analyzed is aimed at “secondary prevention,” which targets those at highest risk for gang affiliation—children aged 10 to 15 living in poorer neighborhoods with elevated crime rates.

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Faith, hope and rollerblades for kids in Honduras

January 22, 2014

4 min read

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Faith, hope and rollerblades for kids in Honduras

By Jennifer Brookland

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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.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”grey” align=”align_center” style=”” border_width=”” el_width=””][vc_column_text]Father Jairo Guzman is an expert at keeping other people’s secrets. As a priest, he has to be. But the kids he works with at the Cofradia Outreach Center near San Pedro Sula, Honduras have secrets of their own. Secrets like which gang they might be involved with, or even what their real names are.

They keep these secrets to protect themselves and those they care about. That’s why, when one of them was found killed this year at age 19, Pastor Guzman could only identify him by his nickname: La Mula.

Faith_Hope_Love1 What these young people cannot keep secret, though, is their need for belonging. It is one of the reasons they join gangs in the first place, along with the boredom, poverty and promises of money, manliness and honor.

So Father Guzman decided to create something else they could belong to. He joined, too. And even though he had never been on inline skates before, he pushed past the falls and the bruises and even the occasional jeering to become an active member of Skatebrothers, a club that now sends 35 boys and girls aged eight to 25 zipping around the neighborhood on rollerblades.

“My main objective is to eliminate violence,” says Guzman. “But you can’t just tell kids what to do and what not to do. You have to show them.”

Guzman runs the Skatebrothers club out of the outreach center, which has provided about 1,600 youths with a safe space since June 2011. Supported by Creative Associates International’s Alianza Joven Honduras project, the center offers English and computer classes, skills training in things like beauty and baking, and clubs that kids can join to play music or learn modern dance.

Faith_Hope_Love3 All of these activities get them off the unsafe streets and build their abilities. But they also boost their confidence, and help the community see them in a new light.

“Why work with these young people?” neighbors asked Guzman when he started the center. “They’re involved with drugs. They’ll steal things from the church.”

Ever since Guzman opened the center he’s been giving kids the tools to prove those neighbors wrong.

Beyond their academic courses he’s been teaching the youth about values, and how to provide love in their communities—places that are often rife with domestic abuse, violence and broken homes.

Guzman also involves the parents: he makes sure they’re involved in their children’s activities and are aware of their transgressions—and their progress.

When he started Skatebrothers, he gave members identification cards that confirmed their affiliation with the center, and instructed them to be respectful of property and to lay off the graffiti. He made it clear that he was watching them.

Now, community members accept the project, and even serve as volunteers to help run it.

They accept the boys and girls more, too.

Guzman says he would have continued the club with or without the neighbors’ approval. But it’s nice to see the impact Skatebrothers is having on the way these young people are increasingly seen as a positive part of the community.

These days, Guzman is asked less about why he’s trying to reach these kids, and more about where they’ve been. When the center ran out of funding, the priest couldn’t afford to buy any more skates, so Skatebrothers has been put on hold. A used pair of rollerblades costs around $30.

The music club is also on pause, after enthusiastic kids played the drums until the instrument was nothing more than a rim and an echo.

But Guzman is working to establish new partnerships and raise money for the center in an effort to get Skatebrothers and the other clubs up and running again.

After all, the center and clubs like Skatebrothers are about more than language classes and computer games. They provide acceptance, love and belonging for young people that might not get it anywhere else.

They give Guzman something too, he says: “hope for youth in Honduras.”

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WATCH VIDEO

For kids in Honduras, a toy drive fit for kings

December 24, 2013

3 min read

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For kids in Honduras, a toy drive fit for kings

By Jennifer Brookland

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Thanks to young volunteers and one of the biggest private companies in Honduras, kids in poor communities will have new and used toys this Christmas.

Throughout Latin America, Dia de los Reyes celebrates the three kings or magi who traveled by horse, camel and elephant to bring gifts to baby Jesus.

In Honduras, Lady Lee Corporation, the largest mall operator, is wrapping up a toy drive that will send gifts to at-risk youth in poor communities around the country to celebrate their January 6 arrival, and the Christmastime holiday that grew from it.

The gift-giving is not entirely symbolic: A joint initiative with Creative Associates International’s Alianza Jovenes Honduras-USAID program, the campaign will send toys to outreach centers that provide youth in violent communities with a safe space to gather, receive training in marketable skills, access academic tutoring and volunteer.

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Central American youth send united anti-violence message

December 20, 2013

6 min read

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Central American youth send united anti-violence message

By Jennifer Brookland

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jvc — The national coordinators of Central America’s Youth Against Violence Movement spoke at the World Bank about their efforts to raise awareness about violence prevention, and advocate for more effective and inclusive policies.

Aleyda Méndez was a newly minted teacher working in rural El Salvador when she realized her country was in serious trouble. When she asked her 10-year-old students what they wanted to be when they grew up, several of them told her, “murderers.”

Mendez was stunned. But she understood. Drug and gang violence in El Salvador had made it common for these kids to see dead people lying in a public street, and for parents to bury their children. Killing had become normal.

Shocked at how drug and gang violence was rending communities like her own, Mendez started looking for ways she could get involved in prevention. She heard through Facebook about a fledgling youth campaign and went to a meeting.

“We decided we no longer wanted to be victims,” she says. “We wanted to be the solution.”

Mendez and her compatriots founded the Youth Against Violence movement with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development and Creative Associates International, whose Alianza Joven Regional program reduced at-risk youth’s vulnerability to gang recruitment and crafted national and regional policies for violence prevention.

“Youth has a reputation as always being part of the problem,” says Mendez. “The goal is to raise public awareness, advocate for violence prevention policies and to tell Salvadoran citizens to listen to the voices of youth who really want to participate.”

Less than three years later, the movement had spread to all seven Central American countries, and this year, Mendez is serving as the rotating regional president of the entire network.

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