Happy New Year from LALA! Even though we are already six weeks into 2024, we still wanted to wish you all a prosperous year full of achievements and lots and lots of social impact!
For LALA, 2023 was a year in which we increased our impact, reaching over 2,300 young leaders throughout Latin America. Thanks to your contribution, we continue with our mission to find, develop, and connect the hidden gems across our continent so they can reach their full potential and become the changemakers of our region!
Our Leadership Bootcamps application process is opening on February 19th! From February 19th to March 22nd, 2024, our application process will be open for new LALideres to join us for the July/August Bootcamp season!
We are looking for young leaders between the ages of 14 and 20 who are enthusiastic about generating social impact and want to improve their leadership skills.
If you know anyone who fits this profile, please redirect them to our webpage (
https://latinamericanleadershipacademy.org/leadership-camps/) or any of our social media, such as
LinkedIn or
Instagram. This is an excellent opportunity to become part of the change transforming Latin America!
Also, if you want us to get in touch with a particular organization that might be a good ally to promote our admissions process (schools, universities, or other NGOs), please contact Lina Herrera at lina.herrera@somoslala.org
Preview of our 2023 resultsPlease stay tuned to our official 2023 Annual Report, which is coming out soon.
In 2023, we received over 1,500 applications, from which 446 applicants were selected to become LALideres and join our community. We had two in-person and 13 virtual leadership boot camps, reaching communities all over the continent. From this new cohort of LALideres, 87% received financial support, and in total, we gave over US$140,000 in scholarships.
Our LALideres come from different countries, cultures, and backgrounds, and we are proud of the diversity of our community and to have DEIA as one of our flags. On average, 70.3% of our LALideres come from underrepresented backgrounds, including the LGTBIQ+ community, rural communities, first-generation university students, low-income families, and BIPOC communities. In 2024, we will keep fighting and working to reach the historically underserved communities and ensure they can access our development opportunities.
Our programsWe continue offering our program ecosystem, seeking to support LALideres in their personal and professional development paths. In our University Placement Program, over 34 LALideres were supported in their applications to US Universities. Although many of them are still awaiting their application results, the cohort has already achieved incredible results, reaching 3 million dollars in scholarships for their 4-year studies in the US.
On the other hand, our mentorship program had 91 pairs of LALideres (mentees) and volunteer mentors from around the world. During six months, our mentors and mentees met virtually to work on specific challenges the LALideres faced, focusing on four main topics: personal development, professional development, entrepreneurship, and academic development. A special thanks to all our volunteer mentors who participated in this program! If you want to become a mentor, please contact us at paloma.ribeiro@somoslala.org.
During 2023, we also had 11 LALideres doing paid internships at LALA and 58 LALideres participating in our Leadership Bootcamps as staff members. These experiences allowed them to grow professionally and personally, gain experience, and improve their CVs. It was an honor for us to work with such outstanding young leaders and contribute to their professional development!
By all means, if you are more of a visual thinker, we invite you to take a look at our END YEAR THANK YOU VIDEO FOR DONORS, including most of the previously shared information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZF1yogsrM0 What’s coming in 2024This year, we will open our first country hub in Brazil!
After thoroughly assessing our expected impact and operations model, we discovered that we needed to be closer to our communities to generate a more significant impact. This is why we are shifting to a hub model to open local operations in different countries across Latin America. The first one will be Brazil; from the learnings we gather there, we will continue with the rest of the continent!
Even though we will focus on Brazil during 2024, we will continue serving the rest of the continent with all our programs offer. This means that our leadership boot camps will continue to be offered in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, and our community will have access to our programs.
If you want to become a local ally in any of the countries we operate, please contact us! We are happy to assess potential partnerships with you.
Once again, “Obrigracias” for supporting us and joining us in our efforts to find, develop, and connect the changemakers of Latin America.
We could not do it without you!
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