Asociación Civil Avanzar por el Desarrollo Humano

To expand our project to more people and geografical locations; to expand our project related to improvement of housing to develop value chains between our objective population to expand our training courses towards more diversified areas and to reach more people; to expand the areas of our projects related to refugees, homeless  and people under conditional freedom; to develop new projects related to people under conditions of vulnerabilty.To expand our project of meeting and interaction with the Representatives of our borrowers throug the "Consejo Promotor"

I am a Professor of Development Economics and Director of a Research Centre at the University of Buenos Aires with a postgraduate degree at the University of London. Also I am a Senior Researcher at the Council of Scientific Research in Agentina. After living 6 years in London I returned to Argentina to contribute to face poverty. Therefore I created, 20 years ago, the “Asociation AVANZAR” to develop social programmes in shanty towns. Initially I was only helped by my course students. 

Since then the institution has been expanding and a consolidated field work team has been created.  My research work, and my direction on young scholars, are oriented to innovative solutions to face exclusion. 

Consequently, I founded at that University the Observatory of Social Innovation to coordinate the actions of academics, NGOs, and Public and Private institutions to strengthen their social impact by promoting and spreading innovative social solutions.

Since 2000 AVANZAR is developing a programme to promote social inclusion through the provision of microcredits, life microinsurance, training courses and tutorial work to people living in shanty towns, to develop microenterprises and to improve their housing conditions. The project was later extended, to include: refugees and migrants, homeless people, (with transitory residence in public homes), or those that got out of prison or remain under parole. 

The deterioration of the economic situation faced by Argentina in the last decades generated an increase in poverty and in the number of homeless and people living under overcrowded conditions. They face high unemployment rate and their access to credits and training are almost inexistent.

Provides microcredits, life microinsurances and free training courses (different kind of crafts and management workshops as well as the access to new technologies, such as software and e-commerce). Also offers tutorial work and support mechanisms for people living in very precarious conditions including those in shanty towns, homeless people or those in risk of reaching that situation, people under conditional freedom or that got out of prison and also to refugees and migrants. The objective is to help them to develop microenterprises and to improve their housing situation.

Our project has the advantage of been enriched by a combination of field  and related analytical work. In that sense it is receiving the research support of young scolars working under my direction at the Research Centre of the University of Buenos Aires. Also with the contacts with other universities

This allow as to follow internacional experiences and to implement new insights about the projects we are implementing at the moment and also about the development of new ideas.  This could have an significal potencial for the future, especially if we could have access to the necesary financial and institutional support.

The work we are undertaking to offer financial and training acces to homeless, refugees, and people under conditional freedom could be considered as projects that were hardly developed in Argentina before. And in order tobe able to carry out these type of projects we could manage to get the financial support and also to reach institutional agreements whith the institutions that work in connection with that matters 

Finally the coordination between the work of AVANZAR with that of the Observatory of Social Innovation could offer, as well, a strong potencial for the developing and diffusion of new innovative ideas.

The community is integrated by people, which are between 18 and 68 years old, that live in shanty towns and in marginal areas of the city of Buenos Aires and the surroundings areas in the Province of Buenos Aires. The program is also oriented to refugees, homeless people or those in risk of reaching that situation, people under conditional freedom wearing an electronic tag, or that got out of prison 

An important aspect of the AVANZAR work is the personal and frequent contact that the people of our team undertakes with the persons we are working with. This helps us to understand their needs and to create a deep relationship and a mutual engagement between them and the institution.

On the other hand we have created and Advisory Council (Consejo Promotor), integrated by people representative of each of the different areas where we work, to inform, render account, discuss the best way to address their needs, to let us now the main people concerns, as well as to get them more involved with our activities . We consider this is way to listen to their ideas as a way to enrich very much our work.