The "Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2006" in Argentina

 

 

 

Marcela Benitez

RESPONDE

Recuperación Social de Poblados Nacionales que Desaparecen

 

Responde offers proposals of solution for the lack of communication, education/qualification, transport and work for 600 rural villages that are in risk of disappearance in Argentina due to the migration from the countryside towards the great cities.

 

Key Statistics

 

Year Organisation Established

1999

Principle Sector of activity

Rural development

Legal Constitution

Non-profit

Organisation Staff

Full time: 5

Part-time: 8

Voluntary: 9

Geographic Area of Activity

Argentina

Number of Direct Beneficiaries

15.000 people in 35 villages

 

The Innovation

 

RESPONDE promotes the recovery of rural villages that are in risk of disappearance or serious crises, through creative and innovative projects of development, where the inhabitants become the true protagonists of the change. The proposals of Responde are oriented towards creative and innovative projects of social and economic development.

 

The villages in disappearance risk are characterized by:

 

- Conclusion of the main economic activity that gave them life.

- Closing of railway stations

- Isolation caused by the layout of routes paved moved away of the old dirt roads.

- Lack of investment in improvement the existing routes.

- Decrease of the amounts of population of each village, reflected in each census.

- Weakening of services infrastructure due to the decrease of the villages population.

- Lack of public transport which allow the transfer of the existing population.

- Lack of investment from the State in formal and informal education.

- Lack of work sources.

 -Impossibility to accede to the information and the opportunities at general.

 

The background in Geography and Sociology and the 15 years that Marcela Benitez has investigated this subject helped her to create Responde attacking the rout of the problem, identifying causes and formulating solutions to avoid the migration and disappearance of rural villages of Argentina.