• Applications are being received from July 1 to August 10, with regard to Citizen Training and Appropriation of the Truth, through com.
• Funds of up to COP 600 million shall be assigned to carrying out all those projects to be selected, which may be local, regional or national in scope.
• With this call, Grupo SURA reaffirms its commitment to managing social capital as well as helping to ensure a collective, more inclusive development for the country.

For the second consecutive year, Grupo SURA has opened a call for proposals on the part of #PensarConOtros for building citizenship and democracy in Colombia, this directed at Colombian creators, companies, organizations and private individuals who wish to submit their initiatives aimed at building trust and strengthening our social fabric, these in the following two categories: Citizenship training and Appropriation of the Truth. The terms and conditions of this call have been made available at gruposura.com and proposals shall be accepted until the deadline of August 10.

"With this second call on the part of #PensarConOtros we wish to encourage and provide support to different initiatives aimed at strengthening the exercise of citizenship and building scenarios of coexistence, peace and reconciliation, as part of our commitment to a more harmonious development of Colombian society," stated María Mercedes Barrera, Head of Corporate Citizenship at Grupo SURA.

After the presidential elections and with the publication of the final report on the part of the Truth Commission, Colombia is clearly going through a transition process. The exercising of democratic rights goes far beyond voting, and therefore it is necessary to recognize and energize new ways of providing support to civic training and conversations. For this reason, Grupo SURA  wishes to encourage social pedagogy, overcome polarization and strengthen a sense of public awareness through various individual and collective initiatives.

In this context, with the aforementioned call we expect a substantial and diverse participation in both of the following categories:

• Training in civic culture: providing support to projects that promote education with regard to peaceful coexistence and democracy so as to strengthen a sense of citizenship. A contribution of up to COP 100 million has been assigned to implementing this initiative.
• Appropriation of the truth for the building a sense of citizenship: proposals are to be selected in this category that, for example, in terms of communication, education, culture which, in short, value the truth as a way to generate trust, build memory and strengthen social capital. Each project shall have a maximum funding of COP 200 million.

Virtual chats will also be held through Grupo SURA's networks to clarify any doubts that may exist while explaining the terms and conditions to individuals and organizations interested in applying.

With this second call for proposals, the evaluations of the proposals received will take into account aspects such as impact, coverage, quality, coherence, innovation, creativity and viability. In total, COP 600 million shall be assigned to executing all the selected projects, which will receive the assistance of  professionals and experts. The projects finally selected shall be announced in November.

Furthermore, this call for proposals includes the lessons learned from the first one, which last November selected seven initiatives that began to be implemented this year, some of which had a particular impact in the context of the Colombian electoral process. This is the case of the Spread the Word (“Corre la voz”) initiative: "We were able to connect young people around the country, with many artists lending their voice and pouring their energy into products that reached more than 25,000 people through social networks," stated Laura Puerta, a member of the editorial committee of the project Artists Campaigning for the Youth Vote.

A research project spanning four countries, called Weaving Bridges (“Tejiendo Puentes”), aimed at reducing the polarization  between the private sector and normal citizens by identifying values and priorities, is also making progress. "We have surveyed the opinions of more than 11 thousand citizens in Colombia, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico and, among these, there are more than 1,000 representatives of the private sector. As a result, we have detected certain key opportunities for reaching different agreements between sectors of society," explained Ana María Araos, Head of Research for the project.

Hence, this second call for proposals on the part of #PensarConOtros shall allow Grupo SURA to continue a conversation in which to listen and learn from various people and organizations on how, by recognizing ourselves as  corporate citizens, we can continue helping to create public value from working together with other actors in society.