The National Secretariat of Technical Planning in Paraguay created the first National Volunteer Program Arovia, a public volunteer platform that promotes increased access to information on public services and opportunities for the implementation of grassroots projects that strengthens citizen participation and local governments structures. Arovia volunteers are young professionals who bring innovative social interventions to territories prioritized within the national poverty reduction strategy.
Innovation Summary
Innovation Overview
The Republic of Paraguay is in development and continues to face challenges in regards to moving millions of people out of poverty, challenges such as creating effective decentralized public institutions, strong local governments, improved access to information on public services, and strengthening participation in civil society. Paraguay has, at the same time, a demographic dividend, a large population of youth with a declining older adult population, yet there is a severe lack of opportunities for young people. For these reasons, the National Secretariat of Technical Planning (STP) created the first national volunteer program, Arovia (or “I believe” in the local indigenous language Guarani). Arovia volunteers are young professional who are called on to implement grassroots, social interventions for at least one year in a territory prioritized by the national poverty reduction strategy. The volunteers live in the selected districts, mobilizing local citizens to participate in a process of sociocultural transformation, by connecting them to local opportunities, actors, institutions, and resources. They are the first local planners from the STP office. This is the first time that the national government has initiated a volunteer platform to achieve development goals based on the local priorities to improve the territorial articulation management and the local citizen participation. The program creates new alliances, connecting special interests from different sectors, to strengthen local governments and to bring information of social services to the local community, thus benefiting the local population.
The main objective of AROVIA is: dynamize local development in socially vulnerable territories by connecting them with professional volunteers who mobilize the participation of the local actors and facilitate multisectoral collaboration. We achieve this by:
1. Implementing local projects related to the local development plans
The key to developing a successful project is to plan it according to multi-stage intervention cycle (entering community, diagnosis, project planning, presenting the project proposal to the local community, implementation, evaluation, scaling up). The projects are implemented in cooperation with local citizens and are linked to the territorial priorities expressed by the local government. The volunteers have to identify and use local resources and to connect public and/or private services related to their projects.
2. Strengthening social participation. The volunteers organize the participants of the projects in:
a. Community groups: to understand the needs of the community group, construct and validate the main objectives.
b. Local government counsels: Arovia volunteers invite a variety of actors from the public and private sectors and civil society, who have interest in working together on project proposals, to increase communication, to share their expertise and best practices.
3. To develop volunteer competencies
The program has developed a training program with technical and social skills for the volunteers. There are two different kinds of trainings: local and national. The volunteers are trained on the main competencies during the national trainings (4x/year), as well as monthly meetings held locally with their coordinators. The coordinators follow up with the volunteers to ensure the volunteers are using the Arovia methodology in their local interventions.
4. To increase visibility and the continued sustainability of the program
Arovia creates different alliances to improve the main content of the program, to strengthen the local interventions and to scale up the number of volunteers in territories through alliances with:
a. Public institutions: to connect local communities to information and services provided by public services and to implement the Arovia methodology in other public institutions.
b. NGO´s: create alliances to strategic organizations for technical support in interventions, such as knowledge specific to the sector
c. Universities: Internships, University Extensions (all Paraguayan university students are required to perform service related to their field of study), and University Laboratories (to create prototypes for local interventions).
d. International cooperation: Arovia was inspired by several international programs, such as Fundación Superación la Pobreza from Chile, the Peace Corps, and Innovation Centre from the Social Prosperity Dept. in Colombia. A mix of their best practices, adapted to the Paraguayan context, resulted in AROVIA.
For the last three years Arovia has functioned as a consolidated volunteer platform, an alternative intervention for local and national challenges in the public sector, bringing benefits to local governments, communities and the volunteers. Arovia has consolidated its base and is ready to scale up through the addition of more volunteers and through new alliances.
Innovation Description
What Makes Your Project Innovative?
This is the first time that the Paraguayan public sector has utilized volunteers as decentralized planners in promoting socio-cultural transformation processes that involve the local community in participating in project development methodologies from the National Secretariat of Technical Planning.
Arovia uses a promotional instead of charity approach. Volunteers identify and use local, already existing resources of different kinds (local knowledge, natural resources, financial resources, etc.) to build grassroots solutions. The utilization of local multidisciplinary groups from differing sectors (civil society, public sector, private sector and universities) and a multidimensional approach to poverty, creates new possibilities for the co-construction of solutions for intractable social problems.
Arovia has created a methodology that utilizes volunteers in creating interventions that promote decentralization, transparency, citizen participation and articulation at the grassroots level.
What is the current status of your innovation?
At this moment our third group of volunteers are in the last stages of their intervention cycle. We are evaluating the program by surveying community leaders and local government allies about the interventions and implementing evaluations of our training program.
Additionally, we have started two South-South cooperation projects. One with the Ministry of Social Inclusion and Development from Perú and the other with the Department of Social Prosperity from Colombia. Both cooperation projects were created to share our experiences and best practices as well as to support the creation of new national volunteer programs.
At national level, we are developing four proposals to implement the Arovia methodology in other public institutions and international cooperation agencies, with allies in the Ministry of Public Health and Social Wellbeing, Ministry of Education and Sciences, UN FAO, and the Ministry of Social Development together with the UN Development Program.
Innovation Development
Collaborations & Partnerships
The National Secretary of Youth assisted with budget and content for the training program in 2015. Arovia's structure was designed in collaboration with Fundacion Superacion Pobreza in Chile, and Arovia has incorporated manuals from Peace Corps. The Social Prosperity Dept. from Colombia helped by sharing their experiences with social innovation projects. Local governments as well are fundamental partners in ensuring the sustainability of the projects and sharing knowledge of the local context.
Users, Stakeholders & Beneficiaries
For the volunteers, it is a unique opportunity to gain experience in project management and multisectorial articulation within a public institution. The local community is exposed to a different approach to local development in the public sector, where they are involved in initiating proposals and implementing projects to solve local challenges. Local governments recieve support from a new public figure who brings information to their community and strengthens civic participation.
Innovation Reflections
Results, Outcomes & Impacts
77% of the volunteers who finished the program are working or pursuing educational opportunities. 80% of the volunteers with jobs are working within the public sector, and 91% are still collaborating with local development initiatives. 88% believe their experience with Arovia helped them acquire employment. Since 2015, 77 local projects were implemented and 204 social services were connected benefitting 96,572 citizens.
Arovia received recognition as one of the 20 best public innovations from Latin America.
Arovia wants to strengthen public sector innovation at the local and national levels to develop more projects with the creation of alliances with outside institutions.
Challenges and Failures
Paraguay does not have statistics on the number of people volunteering in the country. This is why the program supported the process of creating a national law on volunteerism with other civil society organizations.
The training program has been reorganised with new materiales to achieve increased efficacy during the intervention process.
Many times, the development plans and goals created by the local governments do not reflect the reality of territory. To increase the impact of the interventions, Arovia meets with local government actors prior to the insertion of volunteers in the territory to develop plans and agreements for volunteer's service before they even arrive in the territory. That is why we consider the strategic planning of each district as one of the most important stages to ensure a successful intervention.
Conditions for Success
The profile of the volunteer is fundamental to the program. Arovia's goal is to implement, maintain and expand a new government approach to helping vulnerable communities. Every volunteer must have the same high level of motivation and commitment, understanding the essence of profesional volunteerism and be proactive in developing inverventions. That is why the selection of volunteers is very important. The vocation to service must be a stronger motivating factor than renumeration.
The success of each intervention depends on:
1. The effectiveness of the volunteer in acquiring the right local information in the first weeks of each intervention
2. Permanent technical and personal support to each volunteer from the territorial coordinators
3. To make clear your main goals of your social intervention
4. The inclusion of local actors from day one in the project planning process
And above all controlling, frustrations and not losing sight of the main objectives of the program.
Replication
This solution has received interest from different national and international :
- The Dept. of Social Prosperity of Colombia: they want to create a national volunteer program to support Colombians who are living in extreme poverty
- The Ministry of Education and Sciences: to implement the AROVIA metodology of project design in their teacher training institutes
- The Ministry of Public Health and Social Wellbeing: to strengthen the local health councils by implementing a volunteer program
- UN Volunteers: We are planning to activate a UN Volunteer program within the UN community volunteer framework to apply to the program "Opportunities For the People", to reduce extreme poverty in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Development and with the PROEZA "Poverty, energy, reforestation and climate change" project.
And to strengthen the South-South cooperation, we want to create a regional profesional volunteer network, starting with Chile, Paraguay, and Colombia.
Lessons Learned
To grow it is important to present quantitative data on your achievements to policymakers, but the people you are working with in the field place more importance on the bond you create with them, the support you give them day to day, and how you involve them in the process of creating solutions to challenges. They appreciate the commitment the volunteers make, choosing to live in the same context and conditions as they do. Living in the same lived experience of the people helps to gain their confidence and to promote their participation in groups.
It is not necesarry to reinvent the wheel. This innovation has been inspirated by international and national experiences that were adapted to the local context within the government.
A social innovation never has to stop its innovation process. Arovia is a continuing, growing process. Just because you achieve goals does not mean that you should stop looking for ways to improve. That is the secret to achieving sustainability, recognition, and resources to develop more opportunities for young, interested volunteers and for the people experiencing poverty.
Project Pitch
Supporting Videos
Status:
- Developing Proposals - turning ideas into business cases that can be assessed and acted on
- Implementation - making the innovation happen
- Evaluation - understanding whether the innovative initiative has delivered what was needed
- Diffusing Lessons - using what was learnt to inform other projects and understanding how the innovation can be applied in other ways
Innovation provided by:
Media:
Date Published:
16 January 2015