ver the past eight years, LASPAU and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) have collaborated on a series of initiatives to strengthen the capabilities of leaders of non-governmental organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean that are recipients of WKKF funding or are affiliated with the foundation. The most recent effort, the Leadership Fellowship Program (LFP), supports training for NGO leaders who have demonstrated the potential to make significant contributions to breaking the cycle of poverty in three principal regions: Mexico and the Caribbean, the Andean countries, and Northeast Brazil. In addition to providing grants for graduate study in relevant fields, the program featured three social leadership seminars that offered LFP grantees advanced training in public policy negotiations, strategic planning, building social alliances, and similar skills that enhance their abilities to foster positive change.

The third and final seminar, held at Harvard University in August 2006, brought together fifteen participants from six countries for a week of lectures, discussions, work groups, and cultural activities. Participants also made field visits to several Boston-area NGOs working with Spanish and Portuguese immigrant groups. Highlights of the seminar included a day-long workshop on community organizing led by Marshall Ganz, a professor at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations (a university-wide research center based at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government), and a day of experience-based learning at Project Adventure in Beverly, Massachusetts.

The participants felt that the seminar would greatly benefit their efforts upon return to their home countries. As one participant commented: “To begin with, I never imagined that I would have this opportunity. It was a rich and challenging experience. To be able to live with people from other cultures, with different languages, and to be able to make of this moment a time of richness and growth, of discovery of common dreams and beliefs, of the setting of goals and concrete objectives, made this a rich moment of collective learning. I believe that during this time we formed a learning community."