Size Matters

I had waited to update my blog this long because I wanted to find something specific to discuss as far as the advancements I have made toward my goals go. I will talk about this progress starting with a meeting we had at the AVINA foundation that opened up my eyes in a different perspective. It helped me see the involvement we get from enterprises in the social compromise regarding Latin America. As I have been doing research quantifying this involvement, it was definitely very helpful to see the research in a real life picture.

I have come across ridiculous numbers of NGOs that are either based off Latin America, or work together in order to help organizations based off Latin America. The field trip to this organization not only painted a better picture, but also revived me as an intern and made me wish we did that sort of dynamic work more often.

Regardless, some info about AVINA, it is a foundation that helps aid new associations and individuals get started in the process of ethically conceiving their business.  During this meeting I was also exposed to other organizations that work paralleled to this organization. One really grabbed my attention: Alameda, an organization that works with the human trafficking issue, and gets involved with sweatshops from different countries as receivers and senders. Which led me into a huge focus on research for a day, and sadly introduced me to a topic that I had taken for granted throughout my research excursions; trafficking.

 I cannot explain how happy I was to attend this meeting. Although it wasn’t what I expected (I thought we were attending a cocktail kind of thing with other organizations, and it really was a presentation around a table for the interns of RACI), it made me realize that his kind of dynamics is what moves me to get more involved as a worker. Which means that when I work legitimately as a professional, I will have to get involved in a field or company that lets me pursue this kind of learning.

In conclusion, I have learned much as an individual and the impact I can have if I take part in the process of coordinating and carrying forward an NGO.  The meeting had with it a great source of facts that I took to be very interesting. Here are my favorites:

1) Richness is not necessarily linked to money or tangible resources but to the use of those same ones and how happy we feel as individuals.

2) Capital social is your word’s value in the market. It is not assumedly opened to grow, as in, you don’t get more value regardless of how much you steal, but over time until you mess that up.

3) Corruption happens in all levels, and it has a different definition at each level it happens. State- discretion in the administration of public goods and less transparency;  Society- When enterprises support politicians in order to ask for “favors” after they have won;  and Civil- Monopolies in use of power.

And finally my favorite:

The ability for power you have is that the power you have as an individual, but the power you have is diffused. Your diffused power is the power of the volunteers and connections and people who work toward a goal with you, that power can be infinite. This last piece of information definitely gives a lot of hope to those people who think they can’t do anything alone, because no one is alone in fighting a cause that is worthy to follow, once you put it out there someone will always be willing to give you a helping hand.

It will be hard to put into words how this helps me move closer toward achieving my goals for the Summer, and it is mostly because more than just focusing on the Summer this has given me a power to change many goals in my life as a whole. Although it wasn't meant to be a pep talk, it did just that for me, but on a greater scale. 

I am almost done with the internship here, and even if I were to finish tomorrow, I believe I already obtained what I came here to find.