- This initiative on the part of SURA and the Bolivar Davivienda Foundation was expanded to a total of 11 countries throughout the region and received 823 proposals.
- In the form of a virtual transmission, the two organizations announced the 10 projects that shall be implemented in 2025 these to have an impact on different communities in countries such as Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Mexico and others.
- These projects were selected by a panel of 30 expert jurors and shall receive US$50,000 in funding each.
This Thursday, SURA and the Bolivar Davivienda Foundation announced in a on-line event the 10 projects selected as part of the fourth annual edition of the #PensarConOtros call for building citizenship and democracy in Latin America. These initiatives were chosen from a total of 823 and shall receive the support and resources required for their implementation over the next year.
This year, after holding the three previous annual editions in Colombia, this call for proposals was extended to 10 other Latin American countries in which the companies belonging to the SURA Business Group and Grupo Bolívar are present, these having been partners in this initiative for the past two years.
“What excites us most about this fourth annual edition is the incredible response that this call for proposals had throughout the region, this being the first time we have presented this initiative on such a grand scale. Having received more than 800 proposals from various sectors and from 11 countries shows us that Latin Americans are willing to continue helping to build active citizenship and democracy,” stated Fernando Cortés McAllister, executive director of the Bolivar Davivienda Foundation.
These projects were presented under two separate categories: Training in civic culture for living in a democracy:, and Migration, citizens in transit throughout Latin America. After a careful process of deliberation and analysis, our panel of 30 expert jurors selected 5 from each category, for a total of 10 that will be carried out in 2025 with each receiving US$50,000.
“We thank all the organizations and individuals who participated in this year's call for proposals. Being able to bring together in a single opportunity such diverse proposals and visions, from academia, indigenous communities, migrants, cultural and social organizations, is very gratifying and gives us hope that, in these challenging times for our democracies and political systems, there is the ability and willingness to work together to find solutions to common problems,” stated Maria Mercedes Barrera, Head of the Corporate Citizenship Department at Grupo SURA.
Projects selected for implementation in 2025
Category: Training in civic culture for living in a democracy:
Project: “¡Vientos! Noticias que vuelan”. Proponent: Vientos Culturales A.C. Country: Mexico: Vientos! Noticias que vuelan is a television and social media news program aimed at driving the autonomy of children and adolescents in exercising their citizenship. This program seeks to become a platform for authentic expression and assertive communication of this segment of the population, promoting effective participation from an early age.
Project: “Strengthening civic culture, participation and democracy in the socio-environmental management of the climate crisis in Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay, this from a Latin American perspective”. Proponent: Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the University of Antioquia. Country: Colombia: This initiative contributes to the training of citizens in managing and attending to the climate crisis as a collective issue. Its objective is to promote a more conscious and proactive civic culture, based on the training of people who, in turn, train and educate others in their respective territories regarding environmental issues.
Project: “Newentuleaiñ taiñ kimün mew”. Proponent: Epew Collective Foundation. Country: Chile: This initiative seeks to strengthen the soft skills of socially vulnerable children from the Mapuche community in Chile, both in rural and urban areas. It is also aimed at fostering creativity and the expression of identity through art and culture.
Project: “Aroari Project: environmental education and sustainable schools”. Proponent: Hijos de las Estrellas Socio-environmental Association. Country: Brazil This initiative works with the municipal school network in Minas Gerais in order to educate from an early age young citizens committed to the environment as well as values such as social responsibility and a sense of community ownership. This is done through recycling, waste recovery and separation as well as composting procedures, along with pedagogical work with educational communities.
Project: “Citizenship in dialogue”. Proponent: San Pedro Cemetery Foundation.
Country: Colombia: This project aims to strengthen the participation and citizenship skills of young people in Medellin, Colombia, through a training process involving the arts, particularly the collection of the San Pedro Cemetery Museum, founded in 1842 which is recognized as a national cultural heritage.
Category: Migration, citizens in transit throughout Latin America.
Project: “Public art program: Is migration beautiful?”. Proponent: Alejandro Ramirez Salas. Country: Costa Rica. This initiative proposes to create an opportunity for reflection and creation where artists and LGBTQI+ migrants in Latin America gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a citizen in a context of diversity and mobility, confronting marginalization and discrimination and inviting society to reflect on their own position as well as participate in building a more inclusive community.
Project: “Migration in transit: international film festival”. Proponent: VeneActiva. Country: Peru Based on a diverse program of films, this proposed platform shall allow the stories of migrants to resonate in different cultural contexts and offer multiple perspectives on migration, from uprooting to integration in new countries. It shall feature screenings accompanied by workshops in communities in different cities in Peru, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and in Madrid (Spain), and New York (USA).
Project: “Invisible threads of migration, narrations from the migrant population”. Proponent: Women in the Arts Association “Leticia de Oyuela” (MUA). Country: Honduras. This initiative is aimed at providing a voice and visibility to the migrant population in order to vindicate their rights and confront stigmas in different contexts. To this end, this project uses its own model consisting of a creative psychosocial support methodology (MAPC in Spanish) to raise awareness among children, women and community players in contact with the migrant population on the northern coast and downtown Tegucigalpa.
Project: “Traveling voices: migration, citizens in transit throughout Latin America”. Proponent: Icesi University. Country: Colombia: This project is aimed at implementing a legal clinic by way of a radio spot in order facilitate access to justice and the defense of human rights in remote places where the migrant population is unprotected. This is also combined with the visibility of life stories to raise awareness of the protection that migrants deserve and require.
Project: “Improving conditions of resilience and social integration of women survivors of gender-based violence in the context of mobility in Tijuana and Tapachula”. Proponent: Ayuda en Acción. Country: Mexico: This initiative is aimed at the women population in this part of the world through humanitarian aid in the form of shelters, psychological and medical care, and activating employability routes through entrepreneurship and jobs in formal companies in Mexico, measures for which count on the participation of corporate volunteers to raise awareness about forced human mobility.
About the SURA Business Group:
We are a Colombian Organization founded almost 80 years ago, that is present in 8 countries in Latin America where we serve more than 45 million clients with the help of nearly 28 thousand employees. Our holding company is Grupo SURA, which manages a portfolio focusing on financial services that includes its subsidiaries Suramericana, specializing in insurance as well as trends & risk management through its companies Seguros SURA, a leader in its industry in Colombia and present in six other countries throughout the region; SURA Asset Management an expert player in asset management, of which Protección is a subsidiary in Colombia. It also has a direct presence in four other countries through its Savings and Retirement business units (pension fund management) and its regional platform SURA Investments. Likewise, the Organization has its own SURA Foundation, incorporated in Colombia, Mexico and Chile.
About the Bolivar Davivienda Foundation:
We are the social arm of the Bolivar Business Group, with more than 75 years of experience, building trust and a sound reputation in various sectors of the Colombian market. Since 2009, we have dedicated our efforts to structural, sustainable and impactful transformations in our society, the purpose of which is to develop the necessary talent for nation-building. As part of the Bolivar Group's social commitment, we support and promote transformative and high-impact projects that generate capabilities in people, communities and organizations in order to build a fairer, more equitable and innovative society.
