Innovators/Innovations (full text)

Trelles Paz, 31, whose own fiction has been praised as “ambitious” and “ingenious,” has published a major series of anthologies aimed at introducing the world to the talented writers of his generation. A professor of Romance Languages and Literature at Binghamton University, State University of New York, and the author of Hudson el Redentor (Hudson the Redeemer) and El Círculo de los Escritores Asesinos (The Circle of Killer Writers), Trelles Paz published his first anthology of 63 authors on www.piedepagina.com, the website of a Bogotá, Colombia-based literary journal in 2008. His anthology, El Futuro no es Nuestro: Narradores de América Latina nacidos entre 1970 y 1980 (The Future is Not Ours: Latin American Narrators Born Between 1970 and 1980) is now available in a shortened print version, with excerpts from the work of 20 writers, in Argentina and Bolivia, and is scheduled for release later this year in Chile and Panama.

The Lima-born Trelles Paz says he wanted to focus on writers born after 1968, a generation he says is marked by a desire to scrap the “all-knowing and all-powerful veil that used to stand between the writer and everyone else.” That, he adds, “allowed us to find our own voice.”

But Trelles Paz also notes that one defining characteristic of the newer writers is that they have been aided by the rise of independent editorial houses across Latin American countries. This is in contrast to their predecessors, whose main avenue to the reading public was through long-established publishing houses of Spain, which often made books expensive and inaccessible to Latin American readers. Combined with the availability of online resources, this diversity of publishing venues has democratized the Spanish-language publishing business, he says. Trelles Paz practices what he preaches: his own anthology has been supported by local independent publishers across Latin America as well as on the Internet. He admits that online literature makes him slightly uncomfortable. “I’m allergic to books online,” he says. ”They don’t smell like anything. But it would be naïve to deny the power of the Internet in combating the editorial isolation in which Latin America finds itself.”

Trelles Paz’s work has already helped his fellow authors gain greater attention. After reading the anthology, U.S. film director Francis Ford Coppola asked Paz and Peruvian writer Daniel Alarcón, author of Lost City Radio and associate editor of the Peruvian magazine Etiqueta Negra, to co-edit the Spring 2009 issue of Coppola’s literary magazine, Zoetrope: All-Story. The issue features ten stories in both English and their original language of publication (either Spanish or Portuguese). Michael Ray, the editor of Zoetrope, who prior to meeting Paz was unfamiliar with post-boom Latin American authors, says he was surprised at how familiar the work of the featured authors seemed to him. “There is no real ‘otherness’ or ‘exoticism’ about it. The writers could have come from anywhere in the world,” he says.

Winning back these disenchanted youth is one of the primary challenges of Karina Bolaños, Costa Rica’s Vice Minister of Youth. The ministry that Bolaños, 36, helps direct conducted the survey of Costa Rican youth, and the public attention to its worrying figures is spurring government action in areas such as HIV/AIDS education and microfinance for young entrepreneurs.

For Bolaños, politics is a family affair. Her father was the mayor in her hometown of Heredia, and her husband is running for the Chamber of Deputies in the same local district. In 2005, she jumped into national politics, working on the campaign of Oscar Arias, directing youth mobilization campaigns.

After Arias’ election, Bolaños joined the ministry, where she has developed a pragmatic approach to tackling the issues faced by young Costa Ricans.

For example, Bolaños, who describes herself as “100 percent Catholic,” has pioneered her country’s HIV/AIDS prevention programs. The ministry, at her urging, has begun a United Nations-supported program aimed at training young people in AIDS prevention, which inevitably has involved training in condom use and sex education. The program has been criticized by several local priests, but the ever-practical Bolaños maintains that programs must respond to the reality of sexual activity among youth, without preaching to them.

One of Bolaños’ crowning achievements was helping to secure Costa Rica’s ratification of the Ibero-American Convention on Children’s Rights. In March 2008, Costa Rica became the fifth country to ratify, which allowed the convention to enter into force as an international treaty. The convention is the only international treaty of its kind, laying out the rights of youth ages 15 to 24 years old. Its 44 articles cover rights associated with health, education, work, military service, and cultural practices.

In June, the Ministry of Youth launched a joint project with the Ministry of Labor to provide loans to young entrepreneurs. Even before the program had gotten off the ground, more than 1,000 applications poured in from aspiring businessmen and businesswomen around the country. Bolaños won’t say whether she has future political ambitions, but she acknowledges her stint in the youth ministry won’t last forever. “You have to open the door for the next generation,” she says. One of those rising youth leaders may be close to home. Her 11-year-old daughter, Daniela, lost a recent bid to become class president—but plans to run again.

In 2004, Calderón, 35, left a comfortable job at a hedge fund to create one of the first specialized film investment and management companies in Latin America. Under his direction, dynamo Capital manages the Fondo de Capital Privado de Cine Hispanoamericano, the second fund to register under the Colombian
Government Decree 2175, which established the legal framework for regulating collective investment schemes, ensuring stability and transparency for domestic investors. This coincided with another initiative, the Colombian Film Law, which promotes investment in the country’s film industry by allowing investors to offset 125 percent of the value of their investment against their tax bill. A former investment banker with an artistic bent, Calderón grabbed the opportunity, creating a local investment fund to support the budding business of Colombian films.

Calderón says the management company, which draws 96 percent of its capital from domestic pension funds, strives for a diverse portfolio of films. Any genre is welcome, as long as it fits the legal requirements of a Colombian production or co-production.

To minimize risk to investors, dynamo Capital (which Calderón says will offer 12 to 18 percent annual returns) has a built-in quality control department. Dynamo Producciones, the group’s production company, led by up-and-coming director Andi Baiz (Satanás) oversees and sometimes manages the creative end of each project. So far, they have a promising track record. Satanás, based on the Mario Mendoza novel about the country’s 1986 Pozzetto massacre won Best
Colombian Film at the 2008 Cartagena film festival and was Colombia’s entry for the 2008 Academy Awards.

Baiz, who prior to joining dynamo worked on films including Zoolander (2001) and Maria Full of Grace (2004), said he was drawn to dynamo because of its smart practices and creative flexibility. “Cinema is the perfect combination of art and commerce,” says Baiz, “And dynamo understands this balance perfectly.”

Other critically acclaimed box office Colombian films like Maria Full of Grace, Paraíso Travel and Soñar no Cuesta Nada have helped transform the country’s film industry into a regional leader, and dynamo Capital has clearly ridden the wave. The boom has found a hungry local audience: ticket receipts in Colombian cinemas grew from $17.1 million to $22 million between 2003 and 2008.

The launch of dynamo Capital coincided with (and reflected) Colombia’s boom in foreign and domestic investment. Calderón also believes the country and his industry are well positioned to withstand the global recession. “The financial crisis,” he says, “has only boosted Colombia’s new image as a land of opportunity.” Investors are increasingly looking to emerging markets for growth potential, and cinema is a relatively safe investment. People go to the movies to escape the tough economic realities of the times. In recent months, U.S. box office receipts have increased. Calderón is betting that this can benefit even foreign movies, and dynamo Capital’s investors.

After working in agricultural programs for youth for several years, Silva founded ACREDITAR, a microcredit institution in her native Pernambuco in northeastern Brazil, when she was just 23 years old. In doing so she hopes to counter the trends of poverty and unemployment that were driving her young and ambitious peers to the more prosperous south. Two years later, Silva wants to extend credit and opportunity to entrepreneurs in one of Brazil’s poorest regions. Unlike traditional micro-lending institutions, ACREDITAR, which is operated and run by young people, perceives education as a core function. It offers classes on business management, personal finance and sustainable agriculture. That last category is particularly important to Silva, who once aspired to be a lawyer because she thought it would be a more “dignified” career than working on her family’s farm.

Silva hoped to use a law career to fight for the legal rights of her community. But her early involvement in SERTA (Service for Alternative Technology), a local nonprofit that educates youth in sustainable agriculture technology, persuaded her that she could achieve more by helping people to realize their economic potential. SERTA offered some finance courses, and Silva soon began to use it as the framework for creating a new organization.

ACREDITAR—which means “to believe” in Portuguese, but is also a play on “crédito”—was born when it became clear that it would be necessary to form a new entity that would have the legal right to give loans. Founded in 2007 with $10,000 Reais ($5,000) from the Kellogg Foundation, it has since expanded its capital to more than $100,000 and operates in seven cities in the state of Pernambuco. The organization has since received training and equipment from Fundação Itaú Social and the state of Pernambuco, and has been recognized by UNICEF for its work with youth. Last November, Silva was named an Ashoka fellow, a fellowship awarded to approximately 200 individuals worldwide each year for innovative social entrepreneurship; she was the youngest fellow elected in Brazil that year.

But perhaps the greatest tribute to her efforts is the fact that ACREDITAR has helped spark business creation throughout the region. ACREDITAR’s clients, which to date number more than 600, have started businesses in irrigation, organic agriculture and prepared foods. While Silva’s finance expertise could easily land her a plum job in Brazil’s private sector, she plans on sticking with ACREDITAR. “We still have a lot of work to do,” she says. “We hope to become a recognized brand for the region.”