On Tuesday, October 8th, the RACI team led the workshop, Laboratories of Regional Innovations: Strengthening Organizations, Generating Impact at the Misiones province House of Representatives, with the support of Banco Galicia and accompanied by our local partner, Fundación Desarrollo Agropecuario (FUDA).
Along with Lucas Carneiro, FUDA’s director, Luana Esquenazi and Clarisa Piccione from RACI commented on the workshop in an interview they conducted on Channel 6 Digital and in the newspaper El Nacional de Misiones.
The innovation laboratory aims to strengthen civil society organizations in Misiones so they can develop social projects that have an impact on their territory and generate sustainability over time. The idea was to analyze a problem, find an innovative and creative solution, and lay the foundation for a project that allows them to foresee the possibility of financing. The laboratory had eight themes: sustainability of organizations, education, environment, youth, civic technology, rural communities, early childhood and social development, and inclusion.
According to Carneiro, the workshop’s training tools are very necessary nowadays in the third sector of the province. “It is very difficult to remain a formalized organization,” says Esquenazi, “the cost is very high.” The context in which these organizations are trying to generate impact must be taken into account: economic sustainability is a challenge at this time, as is the continuity of the projects.
“We are in a context where the enabling space is being restricted,” Esquenazi explains. “There are more and more bureaucratic elements that we have to comply with, it is increasingly difficult to maintain an open organization, the amount of resources that must be available.”
According to Piccione, in order to avoid the vicious cycles of bureaucracy and to carry out organization sustainability, alliances must be generated supported by networks and projects together. The resources need to be diversified, because at the end of the day, financing does not only come from state subsidies, but also from cooperation with private companies and international cooperation.
As for Misiones, “there is a very strong culture of working with the public sector […] that often culminates in these instances of financing,” says Carneiro. “The challenge is to open the game to generate more alliances and networks and add to the private sector.”
On Wednesday, after having conducted the workshop, RACI accompanied FUDA’s daily tour of the Barrio El Porvenir. There we learned about their work of empowering rural women through the creation of organic gardens for personal consumption and for sale in the area. Through this work, FUDA promotes projects to strengthen women as a social sector, the growth of remote rural communities, and the building of a sustainable society in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Posadas.
We want to highlight and congratulate the work of our local member, FUDA, for welcoming us and introducing us to the great work of many women in the province of Misiones. We hope that this will help create ties, build a network, and cooperate in the generation of alliances with the social sector.
A new edition of the workshop will take place in the province of Córdoba, on November 6 at the Student House, with free admission. Attendance certificates will be delivered.
To sign up, click on the following link:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe1YAoiQtQSQeO4SQAbe5m5JV2_ACuOUU5_gt8JXEE-95c1iw/viewform