José Ignacio Avalos Hernández
At age 22, José Ignacio Avalos Hernández started a youth movement for human values called Gente Nueva, at a time when civil society organizations were regarded as highly suspicious in Mexico. Since then, he founded or inspired the establishment of many organizations based upon improving individual capacities, opportunity access for the poor and infrastructure building. Some of these organizations include: COFAS; Compartamos Banco, now Grupo Gentera; and Mi Tienda. José is currently Chaiman of the Board and Founder of Promotora Social México, Venture Philanthropy and Impact Investing pioneer organization in Mexico. He is the founder of Un Kilo de Ayuda, an NGO that works to promote Early Childhood Development in Mexico, and has ventured in the education field as Founder and Board Member of Mexicanos Primero.
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- Un Kilo de Ayuda
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- Model
- Hybrid Social Enterprise
- Sectors
- Social Protection; Education
- Headquarters
- Mexico
- Areas of Impact
- Latin America, Mexico
Un Kilo de Ayuda
Un Kilo de Ayuda (One Kilo of Help) was set up to fight malnutrition among children under five years of age as well as pregnant mothers. The organization’s methodology consists of six main components: nutritional surveillance; anaemia detection; nutrition education; nutritional package distribution; neurodevelopment and early stimulation evaluation; and safe water. It applies these actions to 55,000 children in rural Mexico every two weeks.
Un Kilo de Ayuda gathers information on each child they serve with an online epidemiological system called INFOKILO in order to track progress and make intervention recommendations. Children served by the programme have shown an annual weight increase of 5-8% and a decrease of 1.5-3% for those suffering from moderate to severe malnutrition.
Un Kilo de Ayuda has successfully enrolled governments in funding the programme and implementing the holistic and integrated approach in their specific programmes. It has confirmed the relevance early stimulation has on the neurodevelopment of the brain in comparison to food. This refocuses the health agenda on the importance of nutrition, in that intelligence is more critical than height, for example. Eradicating child undernourishment in Mexico is Un Kilo de Ayuda’s goal. In addition to a strong nutrition programme, it enjoys impressive community support and participation; the majority of its personnel are volunteers.
awardees
Our awardees
Toby Norman
Vivek Maru
