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Coordinated solutions to complex problems: the Enlaza programs
With this and other similar programs, Dejusticia’s commitment is to continue working hand in hand with other organizations to build a civil society with a strong, inclusive and well-informed voice.
Por: Daniela Correa Agudelo, Isabel de Brigard | June 25, 2024
In the current context, the challenges shared by communities and people in seemingly distinct contexts are increasingly evident. The implications of the environmental emergency, the closing of civil society spaces, or the new geographies of poverty and inequality demand articulated, strengthened, plural and sustainable responses, built through multilevel and multi-stakeholder dialogues. At Dejusticia, we seek to contribute innovative strategies that support organizations that defend human rights in facing these challenges.
Our Enlaza programs offer a model of collaborative work to advance innovative proposals to address these shared challenges. How do these programs work? First, based on our work and our relationships with different human rights organizations, we identify broad issues that pose challenges for the work of individual organizations and where our place within civil society organizations allows us to function as a focus point. In this way, Enlaza programs address issues such as the protection of strategic ecosystems, or responses to the closure of civil society spaces. Once the focus of each Enlaza has been chosen, we convene a group of key organizations on the topic, and form working groups, bringing together diverse actors with different, informed perspectives. The specific development of each Enlaza cycle is adjusted to the needs of the organizations involved, but always seeking to make the lessons we have learned at Dejusticia over our years in the field available to other human rights defenders and to co-construct collective responses based on the strengths of each organization.
For this reason, the Enlaza programs have included, for example, the accompaniment and joint work with our communications team to design strategies that allow us to effectively transmit diverse projects in a multimedia world and to diverse audiences. In addition, because we recognize the importance of exchange spaces for building collective solutions, we incorporate into the Enlaza cycles meeting events in which the participating organizations can interact, explore opportunities for articulation, provide feedback on their initiatives, and take advantage of various training spaces, such as action-research, strategic litigation or communications workshops. At the end of some cycles and in order to promote links between the participating organizations and other actors that can support their initiatives, we have organized events where embassies, donors, key actors from the private sector and academia, etc. are invited, providing them with the opportunity to hear first-hand from the organizations in the cycle, learn from their experiences in the field, and propose strategies for collaboration, donations, financing or alliances.
Strengthening Civil Society to Confront Environmental Degradation in the Amazon
In 2021, our commitment to promote solidarity with the human rights movement from Enlaza programs focused on the visibility and strengthening of projects and initiatives against environmental degradation and human rights violations in the Amazon. The main objective was to promote the construction of networks of organizations working in this territory, strengthen them and increase their connections to donors and other potential sources of support. In addition, we sought to promote spaces to innovate and build new approaches for the work of civil society in the care of this biome and the communities that inhabit it. The protection of the Amazon is, by its nature, a challenge that can only be tackled with coordinated actions that take into account the environmental, social, economic and habitability dimensions of the communities involved. That is why Enlaza Amazonía included organizations from Colombia, Peru and Brazil that work in this territory and helped us to build a shared vision of the region.
Organizations from Mocoa, Mitú and Puerto Leguizamo (Putumayo) and La Chorrera (Amazonas) represented Colombia; organizations from Lima, Iquitos (Loreto) and Moyobamba (San Martín) represented Peru; and organizations from Sao Paulo, Belém and Altamira (Pará) represented Brazil. The work of each organization had very diverse approaches and strengths, from those working to ensure food security with an intercultural perspective, to those working for women’s empowerment or human rights education through multisensory landscapes, to those doing geo-journalism from a Pan-Amazonian vision and seeking to strengthen the self-representation of indigenous communities in audiovisual production. This diversity of approaches coincides with the various layers that must be taken into account to offer effective solutions for the protection of this ecosystem and those who inhabit it, and bringing them together in a single conversation was crucial.
In addition to the exchanges among participants, we had the participation of key agents of change to promote projects such as the Ford Foundation, the Norwegian Fund for Human Rights, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Amnesty International, the embassies of the United States and the United Kingdom. The event closed with the establishment of multiple links in which organizations such as the Movilizatorio, Forum Solidaridad Perú, the Social Projection Unit of the Universidad Santo Tomás, the Indigenous Authorities of La Chorrera and the Fundación Natura were able to articulate and build coordinated work plans and collaboration networks.
With Enlaza Amazonía we were able to train organizations in project design, access to information, environmental participation, strategic litigation and communication strategies. All this knowledge is key to strengthen the work already being done in the field and to ensure that the expertise of the organizations has the greatest possible impact. We also promoted dialogue and the generation of knowledge based on the local experiences of organizations in the three Amazonian countries (Peru, Brazil and Colombia), and strengthened networks of organizations, both local and regional. We were also able to contribute to encouraging the general public and different funding entities to connect with the practices, knowledge and cosmovisions of the peoples and communities of the region and to promote appropriate solutions for the communities that care for and inhabit the territory.
With this and other similar programs, Dejusticia’s commitment is to continue working hand in hand with other organizations to build a civil society with a strong, inclusive and well-informed voice. In this way we hope to be able to contribute to the design of innovative alternatives to our shared challenges that meet the needs of the Global South, but also draw on the enormous strengths of those who work in these regions.