As a part of the initiative, “Innovation for Change in Latin America and the Caribbean”, RACI participated in the Festival of Innovation, held in the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan.
The event was carried out by the local Kazakh organization, ARGO, which coordinates the I4C regional center of Central Asia. It was held from June 10-13 and hosted over 200 participants. The primary objective of this festival was to generate open spaces for exchanges and learning, in relation to innovative topics for the Central Asian region.
“Innovation for Change in Latin America and the Caribbean” is an effort in which RACI has joined forces with other organizations, including Alliance NGO, The Federation of Asian Organizations for Radiation Oncology (FARO) and Jóvenes contra la Violencia (Youth Against Violence). Together, they have been working for more than four years, becoming increasingly involved in the rising concerns identified by the vast region: sustainability, transparency and necessary space.
As part of the Innovation for Change and RACI team, Clarisa Piccione (Institutional Assistant) participated in the event. She hosted a workshop on Civil Society “Innovation for change: Creativity and competitiveness of OSC (Organization for Civil Societies)“. Devised with activities surrounding the world coffee model, discussions of collaborative economy and Crowdfunding were held, and in turn was recognized at the Amazing People awards ceremony.
From June 14-16, we attended another event in Kazakhstan, this time organized by the United States Embassy. It was entitled GoViral. Clarisa, specifically, was in attendance and held a presence at the Marketplace for Social Innovations, where she carried out a dialogue on collaborative economics. She was even interviewed through Facebook Live by the Embassy (which can be found here)!
These type of exchanges between various people in the Latin American and Caribbean regions and those in Central Asia ultimately enables one another to enrich the work that organizations do in each region. Additionally, they forge bonds between one another and help us better understand how to solve the problems faced by other networks and institutions around the world. This meeting challenged the different organizations to think about their plans of action and opened up a network of global communication.