The skills that Latin America can contribute to the world by integrating its ancestral knowledge and history/ Building bridges for a dialogue of cultural decolonization.

Country: Argentina/LATAM
IDG HUB: DG Mendoza Community Hub/Latam Hubs Network/IDG Ambassador Killimajaro Cohort
Link to website:
Link to presentation: Southern Voices

My project emerged from the experience of participating in one of the first cohorts of the Ambassador Program on Ekskaret Island almost a year ago. There, I met people from all over the world, and we realized the need to connect human skills globally and make them impactful locally in our daily work, in the field, and in our practice. Therefore, in my proposal as Ambassador, I decided to expand the IDGs Movement throughout all of LATAM, starting from my city, Mendoza in Argentina, where I have been facilitating for almost three years, together with Christina and Paula. Upon my return, I began connecting with other Hubs and Centers in LATAM to create a new Network, and we all met in person a few weeks ago in Colombia.

We started working with Tanya from Chile, Cristina and Gloria from Colombia, Tito from Bolivia, Telmo from Peru, Bianca from the Dominican Republic, and many others who also participated in the startup of a new Network. This Network, called the IDG Latam Hubs Network, connects all Hubs in Latin America. We registered it in May of this year, and I have the pleasure of coordinating it collaboratively with Tanya and Valeria.
I mention so many people because my project aims to connect people and boost collaboration to have a stronger impact in our cities and countries, which are quite far from the north and from the main decision-making centers of the world. However, the collaboration didn’t stop there. With the new Latam Network in motion, we connected with the IDG Centers and invested our time and money to co-create the First IDGs LATAM Immersion in Colombia and the First Ambassador Program in Spanish and outside of Europe, where I had the opportunity to be the Director’s assistant. This was a unique experience in my life for which I am incredibly grateful to the IDG Global Team and Asa Jarskog for the opportunity.

Thus, my learnings are that implementing the general framework of the IDGs is done in motion. Both the Latam Network and the Immersion and Río Negro Cohort of the Spanish Ambassadors Program are part of putting the IDGs framework into practice from the core: thinking strategically, connecting to co-create, collaborating as the only way, even against our financial means, and acting to make these experiences a reality, which are undoubtedly unique to the internal development ecosystem of LATAM.

We observe that while there are global polarities, some polarities in local and regional contexts are more pronounced. In Latin America, we still experience the pain of these polarities, such as: social inequality vs. resource wealth, technology vs. exclusion, democracy vs. authoritarianism, community culture vs. growing individualism, ancestral wisdom vs. cultural conquest, creative youth vs. brain drain, and others. All these polarities manifest in unresolved issues such as corruption, lack of economic development, environmental devastation, insecurity, injustice, violence, among others. We need to embrace the pains of the stories that we´re still telling us. We also feel the pain of similar polarities from the southern hemisphere, and to go through them, we have to reconfigure economic and power relations to achieve a fairer and more equitable world. In this sense, cultural decolonization movements are very important for us, and we need them to be embraced by all humanity as a form of healing and building bridges for the polarities that increasingly inhabit our countries, our practices, and even our minds. It is time to achieve a healing synthesis of the world’s economic, social, and governance systems, and the IDG Movement has much to offer. This undoubtedly requires starting from the inner, forgiving, integrating, and healing our souls. It also involves re-educating our leaders in all sectors with the IDGs and all the human skills necessary for our prosperity and the transcendence of humanity, always in harmony with nature and for the greatest good.