Submitted
2020 Elevate Prize

Todos Somos Nosotros

Team Leader
Gina Zavala
About You and Your Work
Your bio:

Aldo is a social entrepreneur dedicated for 8 years to promoting sustainability and social awareness in his ventures. He became aware from a young age regarding social issues. Since 2013 Aldo actively participates in Reactivo and is currently the director of Fundraising. Pedro is a social entrepreneur dedicated for 7 years to social causes. He actively participate in favor of his society and this vocation led him to organize a group of friends to positively impact his society.  Since 2013 Pedro is the Director of Reactivo and coordinates a multidisciplinary team of young people to generate social participation.

Aldo and Pedro met at the university and in 2013 together they organized to bring toys to a community in the state of Puebla, after having replicated this action for three years they finally decided to formalize these actions through the foundation of a civil association known as Reactive.


Project name:
Todos Somos Nosotros
One-line project summary:
Our initiative is to create a digital platform that generates time in social participation (TimeGEN).
Present your project.

Our initiative is to create a digital platform that generates time for social participation (TimeGEN). We believe that it is essential to encourage citizens to actively participate in social causes by solving the apathy of members of society. To achieve this, we need access to these initiatives and better yet, we provide a benefit for participating in them.

Submit a video.
What specific problem are you solving?

Principally the apathy of the members of the society. We believe that most of the problems in our society exist because of the lack of interest and sensibilization by the members of the society in social causes. According to civicus.org data, social participation in Latin American countries is much lower than in developed countries. We believe that encouraging and facilitating the involvement of people in social issues will promote a much more sensitized and peaceful culture. In fact, we believe that this well-developed and applied initiative can help reduce many problems, however, the fact of having a society whose members have a collective conscience and see not only for their interests but for those of the entire society leads to that society to be more equitable and peaceful.


What is your project?

Our initiative is to create a digital platform that generates time for social participation (TimeGEN). The objective of the digital platform is to be able to link citizens, companies and educational institutions with social projects of their interest. Once users participate in these initiatives, the platform calculates the time the user spent on these activities. A database of hours of social participation is created. In turn, the objective is to include companies providing products and services with a social perspective to join the network of companies that accept hours of social participation as payment for any of the products or services they offer. We believe that in this way we have a triple impact since both companies and users obtain an economic benefit and by participating in social initiatives, both a social and an environmental benefit are obtained.

Who does your project serve, and in what ways is the project impacting their lives?

We focus on four groups

1.- Civil associations. They are groups of people dedicated to social causes that requires financial support and time (volunteers) to be able to perform better the objective of the association. For them the benefit of being registered in the platform is to be able to access for more volunteering permanent or not for the labor they are doing.

2.- The beneficiaries. They are the vulnerable population that depends on civil associations to obtain a benefit that the government cannot offer them and in this way improve their quality of life and care.

3.- The business. They are local businesses and companies with a social perspective that seek to help but do not know how to actively get involved in social issues. 

The benefit they obtain is the generation of traffic (influx) of new potential customers to their businesses and the additional sale they can obtain from this received traffic.

4.- The Users. They are the members of the society who want to participate or contribute positively to their society but do not know how to do it.

They benefit because by actively participating in social causes they gain a motivational drive to continue helping.


Which dimension of The Elevate Prize does your project most closely address?
  • Elevating opportunities for all people, especially those who are traditionally left behind
Explain how your project relates to The Elevate Prize and your selected dimension.

 Our project relates with the dimension we choose because we are looking forward to create social participation by encouraging citizens to actively participate in social causes that benefit the vulnerable population or community that depends of civil associations to obtain a benefit that the government cannot offer them to improve their quality of life and care. we are the organizations that can give this communities access to a quality education and a safe environment to live and prosper

How did you come up with your project?

Our project initially began when Pedro and I, Aldo, started to carrying toys to the community once a year but we realized that we didn't cause a significant impact. So we decided to not just carry toys but also to do activities that promote values and social tools also once a year. We realized that if we wanted to have a significant impact we had to go at least one a month to track and measure the development of the children. that's how our project Todos Somos Nosotros was born.


Why are you passionate about your project?

Our motivation is the situation that childhood is the future of our country and the world and its important that they have the opportunities to develop as good as they aspire to be.


Why are you well-positioned to deliver this project?

I think I am well trained to carry out this project because since I was little I have been sensitized to social issues. On the one hand the fact of having two brothers with disabilities has made me actively approach civil associations and on the other hand see from a very personal perspective the difficulties and needs of different vulnerable groups. Since 2013 I actively participate in Reactive and I am very interested in continuing to carry out activities for our society.


Provide an example of your ability to overcome adversity.

Since I was little I have dealt with different adversities, from bullying at school for having siblings with disabilities to the difficulties lived by my parents to find a school for them. Throughout my childhood I had to deal with different challenges due to the particular situation in which I found myself, however, I managed to overcome these difficulties and also actively involved myself in solving social problems.


Describe a past experience that demonstrates your leadership ability.

Regarding a major challenge that I have faced in the past, I can think of the example of when I was in charge of organizing events for more than 800 people. When carrying out these events, I had to coordinate a staff team of 80 people to attend to those attending the event. It was a very challenging process since I had to organize the event practically from scratch as well as delegate the main functions to 8 team leaders who in turn gave instructions to 8 people each. The fact that the event had been a success gave me great satisfaction both as a leader and as a person.


How long have you been working on your project?
7 years, we started informally in 2013.
Where are you headquartered?
Cholula, Pue., México
What type of organization is your project?
  • Nonprofit
If you selected Other, please explain here.

Nonprofit.

More About Your Work
Your Business Model & Funding
The Prize
Solution Team:
Gina Zavala
Gina Zavala