The Grand Mayan at Riviera Maya Hosts the Third Meeting of the Advisory Board of United Nations Development Program

The Grand Mayan at Riviera Maya Hosts the Third Meeting of the Advisory Board of United Nations Development Program

The debate on the Regional Human Development Report 2013, " Public Safety: The Key to Human Development in Latin America," took place on August 30-31 at the Grand Mayan Riviera Maya.

Grupo Vidanta, through the non-profit organization the Vidanta Foundation, co-organized and co-sponsored the event in conjunction with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the government of Spain. This momentous event throughout Latin America and the Caribbean was attended by former ministers, former presidents and the highest authorities on security.

The event discussed measures to reduce the problem of violence and citizen insecurity, ensuring the participation of the three levels of government in the Latin American and Caribbean countries, in partnership with civil society, academia and international cooperation.

Heraldo Muñoz, UN Under-Secretary General and Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, UNDP, was responsible for introducing the discussion on the safety report.

Luis Alberto Moreno, President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) addressed the vulnerabilities of the region on the issue of security and violence.

The map of the challenge faced by countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, from the academic point of view, will be addressed by Jorge Dominguez, President of the Harvard Academy for International Studies.

Regarding the subjects of most interest to the region, Alicia Barcena, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, detailed the impacts of uncertainty, an issue that is considered the primary concern of the population of Mexico and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Oscar Naranjo, former General of the National Police of Colombia and Robert Russell, Chairman of the Vidanta Foundation, presented the report's recommendations on how to address the problems of violence and crime in the short, medium and long term, in favor of society.

The Third Meeting of the Advisory Board was attended by personalities including: Former President of the Republic of Guatemala, Jose Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Enrique Iglesias, Secretary General (SEGIB), Juan Ramon de la Fuente, President of the International Association of Universities and Daniel Chavez Moran, Founder of the Vidanta Foundation.

A special guest of the event was Roberto Borge, Governor of the State of Quintana Roo.

“Grupo Vidanta was honored to be the venue in which to discuss issues of global concern, as we believe that for entrepreneurs, it is a must to be key players in the solution and discussion of current issues that concerns us all,” said Eric DuBaele, Director of Hotel Operations for Grupo Vidanta.

Grupo Vidanta Announces Winners for Philanthropic Initiatives to Combat Poverty and Inequality in Latin America

Vidanta Foundation Award 2013 Awarded to Top Organizations throughout Latin America

Three prizes were awarded out of hundreds of entries along with one lifetime achievement award

The ceremony for the Vidanta Foundation Awards 2013 was held this past December 4th at the Santiago National Museum of Fine Arts. On this occasion there were two award categories: “Lifetime Achievement Award” and “Contributions to reduction of poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean Award”.

The Award was created in 2009, following an initiative of cooperation between the Organization of American States (OAS), the Iberoamerican Secretary General (SEGIB) and the Vidanta Foundation, with an annual total contribution of USD $225,000, which is donated by the Foundation in its entirety. The award has the ultimate goal of recognizing and supporting outstanding work carried forward in Latin American and The Caribbean to reduce poverty, inequality and fight discrimination. Furthermore, it seeks to promote humanitarian and solidarity values amongst the general population and to encourage philanthropy and corporate social responsibility.

The jury of the Vidanta Foundation Award 2013 consisted of Carmelo Angulo (Spain), Rebeca Grynspan (Costa Rica), Nora Lustig (Mexico), Jose Luis Machinea (Argentina), Luis Maira (Chile), Billie Miller (Barbados) and Julio Maria Sanguinetti (Uruguay).

According to the jury’s decision, “there were 75 organizations competing for this award. This is a very relevant testimony to the principles of social solidarity that inspire people in Latin American societies, projected specifically in benefit of millions of people in need. Within this group, several of those projects were able to show substantial and comparable values for this award. After careful consideration, the Jury opted to award the Charity Organization “Hogar de Cristo” from Chile. To achieve this result, the Jury considered the long history of the organization, the generalized support of the Chilean people, and their effective and proven commitment to overcome poverty, from the front of direct solidary action and also from the front of an universal definition of poverty, which has even been worthy of recognition from the Chilean State”.

lIFETIME ACHEIVEMENT AWARD:

Hogar de Cristo

The Charity “Hogar de Cristo” was originated in Chile in 1944 as an initiative of San Alberto Hurtado, a Jesuit priest whom had great influence in the social thinking of the country. The Charity’s main purpose is to reduce exclusion of the more vulnerable and poorer sectors and bring society together in the fight for their social integration. It has had a great development and has established itself as the leading Chilean institution working with poor people. It has tended to the needs of the most excluded groups in their society, acting quickly upon emergencies (Santiago’s flood in 1994 and the earthquake on Feb 27, 2010), adapting their methodologies and lines of action to the changes produced in society, collaborating and affecting the different sectors. In recent years, they have developed campaigns and proposed models of intervention to influence public policy directed to eradicate poverty and inequality.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO REDUCTION OF POVERTY AND INEQUALITY IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

FIRST PRIZE:

Asociación Colectivo Mujeres al derecho, Colombia (USD $75,000)

This organization executes activities in the Colombian Caribbean region since 2005. Through their program “Multicultural Space for Women” they support over 2,000 indigenous and African-Colombian displaced women to promote and encourage the integral human development and sustainability in their communities, through participation in different decision making spaces at local, provincial and national levels.

SECOND PRIZE:

IXIM, A.C., Mexico (USD $50,000)

IXIM A.C. works with and supports highly marginalized tzeltales communities in the municipality of Ocosingo, Chiapas, with the goal of transitioning them from merely receiving help to actually increasing their sustainable production of food. The model “Camino IXIM” combines impactful actions at different time terms: at the immediate term, mitigating hunger in between harvests through the provision of corn, at the medium term through sustainable maize fields, orchards, water tanks and poultry to increase the production and food quality, and at the long term with agro-ecological sowing, benefiting the recovery of the soil’s fertility.

THIRD PRIZE:

Proyecto Transgénero, Ecuador (USD $25,000)

The Project was born in 2002 with the purpose to work with communities of transgender sex workers, official institutions workers, national police and the general transgender population in the city of Quito. The project created the Legal Patrol- an innovative approach based on the “alternative use of the law”- which consists in the intervention of different teams of “itinerant legal counseling” roaming the streets offering legal counseling to the transgender sex workers.