Lina Solarte Castro, Project Director, Alvaralice Foundation
2024 was a year in which the Alvaralice Foundation consolidated alliances, which have been fundamental to our program and project development throughout the region.
By providing vital job skills through our employability program, we were able to train 263 youth with the support of EMpower Foundation. Thanks to Commitment to Valle (Compromiso Valle), the program was extended to the municipality of JamundÃ, with widespread acceptance on the part of the community, which expressed gratitude for opening youth employment opportunities. In alliance with HIAS Colombia, we were also able to include a group of Venezuelan migrant women, heightening local business awareness of the group’s difficulties, as well as of their great potential in the labor market. Half of this group was able to find employment in prominent businesses in the city.
Together with the Scarpetta Gnecco Foundation, we carried out the first pilot of the Youth on Course (Rumbo Joven) in four public high schools in Cali, which prepared 52 adolescents for the labor market prior to graduation, projecting their future paths.
Keeping in mind the importance of the textile sector in the region’s economy, we opened a new training cohort of 34 women in haute couture in the JO School, working with designer Johanna Ortiz’ haute couture workshop and the Promigas Foundation.
In Cali, Palmira y Buenaventura, we focused on improving social harmony and diminishing community violence, working with important strategic partners such as USAID- with its Inclusive Justice program, Commitment to Valle (Compromiso Valle) and the Tinker Foundation. Our expanded team was able to mediate in a total of 1779 conflicts in the three cities, referring 293 cases to the appropriate institutions, and rescuing 233 youth from violence.
Extending our programs to new municipalities was undoubtedly one of our major challenges in 2024. Jamundà was not only benefitted by the Youth on Course (Rumbo Joven) program, but also our efforts to strengthen new community leaders with the Laboratory for Community Ideation: from Words to Action (Laboratorio de Ideación Comunitaria: ¡Del dicho al hecho!). The Laboratory was able to promote and consolidate thirty ideas or initiatives of community leaders seeking to achieve social impact in their communities in Jamundà and Candelaria. Twenty community leaders in the two municipalities had the opportunity to strengthen their skills, improve their ideas and make them reality. This was achieved thanks to the joint efforts of Commitment to Valle (Compromiso Valle), the Corona Foundation, Fanalca Foundation, Center for Education and Research in Urban and Rural Community Development (Cedecur), Smurfit Kappa Colombia Foundation, Freinet School, Carvajal Foundation and WWB Foundation. But this united effort was not the only one. After ten years, we returned to the Pacific region, with the Civic Prize (Premio CÃvico) in Buenaventura. Here, we joined
forces with the Buenaventura Chamber of Commerce and companies located in the city’s major port, strengthening ten social initiatives, and awarding seed capital to five of them.
We closed the year in northern Cauca, as a part of the Territorial Commitment (Compromiso Territorial) alliance. We focused on helping to prevent violence against women in the region; we hope to continue this effort in 2025.
We thank every partner, ally and colleague that made it possible for us to extend our scope in 2024.