Experience

·         In this experience with Fundacion Alpina, I had the opportunity to learn how to read, analyze and evaluate various projects related with socioeconomic development. I was able to learn how this projects work, how are they designed and implemented in the communities. Most importantly, I was given the chance to evaluate the performance and provide suggestions and solutions to the way that the projects are designed. More specifically, I was able to work with a project in Sopo, Cundinamarca (a small town close to Bogota, Colombia)  that was  an educative project for the community to learn how to have a better alimentary and nutritional security. This project was developed by Fundacion Alpina and the City Hall of Sopo. In this project I provided an additional component where a productive activities could be incorporated, and therefore not only alimentary and nutritional education will be provided, but also the municipality will benefit economically.

Updated Resume

                                                          Alejandra Ruales

Alejandra.ruales-almeida@loras.edu

HOME                                                                                                                                                                                 CAMPUS

Calle 127 B Bis 21-86 apt 117                                                                                         1450 Alta Vista St. Box 1205

Bogota, Colombia                                                                                                                           Dubuque, IA 52001

(57) 2424434                                                                                                                                           (563)  495-5835 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            (563)  495-5835      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

EDUCATION              Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa                                                                        August 2008- May 2012

BA in Economics and International Studies

Minor in Mathematics

Cumulative GPA:  3.729/4.0 – Honors Program

·         Dean's List 6 semesters

The Fund for American Studies, Washington DC                                   June-2010-July 2010

Completed nine credits in Political Science and Economics at Georgetown University

·         Augmented studies with internship at National Hispana Leadership Institute (see below)

LANGUAGES                         Spanish, Native Speaker

                                    English, Fluent

               

EXPERIENCE             Intern, Fundacion Alpina, Bogota, Colombia                                             Dec2011-Jan.2012

·         Analyzed the organization’s national projects on social and economic development to provide solutions and alternatives to make them more efficient

·         Evaluated an educative project in Sopo, Colombia to create a productive component to it to benefit the community economically

·         Researched the current conditions of the project in Sopo, investigated the community’s perspective on the project to generate pertinent conclusions.

Honors Class, Peer Assistant, Loras College, Dubuque, IA                            July- Dec. 2011

·         Led and prepared class presentations on the subject area upon absence of the professor

·         Teamed with faculty and staff to prepare classes and discuss student performance

·         Served as a positive academic and social role model for students in and outside the classroom

Volunteer, City of Dubuque Self-Sufficiency Center, Dubuque, IA            Aug. 2011-Present

·         Conducting research on implementation of a microfinance or credit union for the program

·         Working with city and credit union officials, and possible partners to implement the project

·         Designing possible models fitting for the mission and vision of the Self-sufficiency Center

Research Intern           , The New York Times, Dubuque, IA                              Aug. 2010-July 2011

·         Researched and targeted relevant information to create effective memos and facilitate the development of the stories for the newspaper.

·         Created daily round-up clips of relevant news and organized a calendar to facilitate research.

·         Created FOIA documents and several requests to the federal government.

Research Intern           , Nat. Hispana Leadership Institute, Washington, D.C                       June - July2010

·         Targeted potential clients for the Latina Empowerment Conferences in Portland and Miami.

·         Researched and created an organized agenda of best options for hotels in large events.

·         Created spreadsheets to organize groups and organizations with similar interests by region

·         Promoted events via mass communication media such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.

Spanish Tutor,             Spanish Department, Loras College, Dubuque, IA             Sept. 2009-May 2010

·         Identified students’ common mistakes to develop individual studying plans.

·         Facilitated students’ learning process of a foreign language by strengthening their oral skills through conversations

Tutor, Physics and Mathematics Classes, Bogota, Colombia                 Jan. 2005 – Aug. 2009

·         Provided in-home supplementary instruction to individual students.

                                   

LEADERSHIP/ ACTIVITIES

·        UNICEF at Loras, President 2011-2012, Vice-President 2010-2011 ·        Loras Intercultural Students Association, President Spring 2010,Vice-President Fall 2009 ·        Loras Varsity Tennis, Captain 2010-2012 ·        PAIDEIA Honors Club, Class Representative, 2009 ·        Du-Talk Program, participant, Diversity and conflict solving training ·        Loras Economics Club, Principles of Macro/Microeconomics, Tutor, 2009-2011

Sunday Summary Week 3

This week, I had the opportunity to finish and turn in my final project on why productive projects should be incorporated in educative projects on a national level. Also, I had the opportunity to go over a lot of pictures and videos from activities that took place throughout the year in Sopo, where people learned how to have a proper alimentary and nutritional security. It was not a very busy week since I finished early my project, but it gave me the opportunity to realize how meaningful this experience was for me.

First of all, and as I commented on previous posts, I had the opportunity to change paradigms that I used to have about multinational companies. This is important because before this experience, I would never have considered working in a multinational company as something that I see for my career, first because I felt that I would not enjoy a “corporate culture” where people just care about increasing profits, keeping a budget and showing growth results of a company measured in economic gains. Through this project, I had the opportunity to see the flip side of multinational companies, where some of them do believe in the importance of having a role in the communities where they operate. Not only that, but it made me realize that the “corporate culture” that I stereotyped before, does not apply to every single company. As a perfect example, Alpina has as part of their vision and culture to produce with sustainability and to create sustainable interactions with the community. Through this, Fundacion Alpina plays a fundamental role showing that “Alpina, alimenta tu vida” (Alpina, nourishes your life) is a motto that goes beyond “nourishment” in a physical way. It is much deeper, as they try to nourish the relations with the community, try to nourish people by making them believe in their abilities by providing them with the tools to grow, to develop and to create wellbeing for them and their families. In this way, I learned a very valuable lesson, that is that wherever I work, I want to feel the passion that the people that work in F.A feel when they develop their projects when they can improve people’s lifestyles in a sustainable way. I want to feel satisfaction not where I have to show a growth indicator, but where I can show a development indicator.

News Story Week 3

Alpina begins operations in New York with a Greek yogurt and a new Factory

“Alpina apuesta en Nueva York con un yogur griego y una nueva planta”

http://www.eltiempo.com/economia/negocios/ARTICULO-WEB-NEW_NOTA_INTERIOR-10946721.html

Alpina has begun operations in New York through Alpina Foods by releasing a Greek yogurt in the market. The New York Times, comments that Alpina will be an important player in the yogurt market in the area. Alpina has intensions of expanding to New Jersey, Connecticut and Toronto. The yogurt released, is a Greek yogurt, which is much denser than conventional product, requires three times as much milk as a regular yogurt will need and is perceived as a healthier yogurt option.

 

The current expansion of Alpina’s market in the United States, and earlier in the year to Ecuador and Venezuela, is going to be important for the company and for Fundacion Alpina. From what I heard a couple days ago in the office, Alpina is planning to double its production in 2012, and by opening new markets they are going to need a much higher supply of milk in the territories where they have operations. This could be an important opportunity for small and medium producers to associate with Alpina. Here is where Fundacion Alpina would intervene. By finding opportunities of association with small and medium producers, they would not only be expanding their range of action and the amount of projects that they have, but they would also be collaborating with Alpina’s goal of 2012. In this way, the current expansion of Alpina to international territory could also be an opportunity for local producers to find a direct commercialization with Alpina. Further than that, it could be an opportunity to expand the effects of economic development that Fundacion Alpina tries to work for.

Journal Entries Week 3: #3

Part A: Professional Career Reflection

Part B:

As I look at my professional career, this experience was extremely meaningful because it opened a career path for me that I never consider before. I have always been interested in development economics, and before this experience I never envisioned working in a multinational company as an option. Working with Fundacion Alpina, helped me to change the paradigms that I used to have about multinational companies and realize that many have an important social responsible component. Companies like Alpina, have as a main part of their corporate culture to dedicate their efforts to guaranteeing sustainability, not only in production, but also in terms of creating sustainable communities that will be able to be economically integrated in a successful way.

As part of my goals in my future career, I want to keep my options open to paths that I haven’t considered before. I was not expecting that I would enjoy this experience as much as I did. I would love to have the opportunity to work for F.A or Alpina again. They truly represent the principles of social responsibility that I am looking for in my personal career and I believe I definitely fit in a corporation like this one. For this reason, I believe that continuing to change paradigms or ideas that I have from multinationals in general is an important step to open my career possibilities and to finding a place where I would truly enjoy working at. I would also like to continue improving my analytical skills, since I would like to work in a place where I am able to do research and evaluation of these types of projects that create socioeconomic development. Most importantly, I want to strengthen my ability to work directly with the communities involved in these projects, in this case due to the limited time I did not have as much time as I would have wished to interact with the Sopo community, but I believe this is something that I need to do more in other projects. 

Journal Entries Week 3: #2

Part A: Turn in final version of the project, collect pictures, videos of the project in Sopo to use as material for power point presentation

Part B:

I turned in the final version of the project. I received feedback from my supervisor today and she was extremely pleased with it. She mentioned that she sent it to the director of Fundacion Alpina to read it and to some co-workers involved in the Sopo project. I received very positive comments about it and I am excited to hear what the director, Eduardo Diaz has to say about it. Later in the day, my supervisor gave me time to collect pictures, videos and other material to take back to Dubuque and show for my presentation. She also gave me time to work on my final presentation for the CEL office because she told me she wanted to see it before I left.

After finishing my project, and being so close to the end of this experience, I learned extremely valuable skills and lessons that I will be able to use in my professional career. First, I learned skills that I thought I had before, but I realize that I strengthen them through this experience. I became a lot better with time management and organization. It was very important to keep these two together since I had to learn a significant amount of information in a very short period of time, and not only that but I had to apply it to analyze different projects. Furthermore, I learned how to create effective reports, and to evaluate important information based on theoretical knowledge and direct experience. A very important lesson that I learned was to be open to alternative was of working. Before this project, I used to be closed minded about alternative ways of developing tasks, since I believed that the way I worked was efficient and the best to go with. However, having Ana Maria as a mentor, opened new possibilities for me and although it does not sound important, she really helped me to learn how to listen and to open to alternative ways of working. I believe this is going to be extremely important for my future work opportunities since it helps me to work better in group.

Furthermore, given the nature of my project, which was research oriented, some major lessons I learned were: the importance of critical reading, as it is fundamental to understand and analyze the relevant information in projects and to use it for future analysis. Second, use that critical reading to analyze and evaluate documents, and create efficient reports and critiques about the information processed before. Third, to provide alternatives and solutions to existing problems. One of the advantages of having a project where I had the liberty to evaluate work previously done is that I could be creative and find multiple ways to approach the flaws or to identify potential benefits for the project. 

Journal Entries Week 3: #1

Part A: Finishing final project, adding background information.

Part B: The past week, I was able to successfully finish my final project and turn it in to my supervisor. This project was an analysis and evaluation of the possibility of implementing a productive component to the educative projects that Fundacion Alpina has in the country. This week, I received feedback from my supervisor, she said that she really liked the project but gave me a couple of suggestions to work on to make it more complete. I did not realized that I designed this project in a way that I assumed that the reader would know exactly the specifics of the project in Sopo, and the other projects that F.A has in Colombia, so she suggested me to add some background information on what was Alpina, why did they created Fundacion Alpina, what was its mission, vision and how they worked their projects. This is one important lesson that I learned: never assume that the reports you turn in will be read by someone who knows what are you talking about (unless specified). With my assignment, it was extremely important to give a context to the final document, since my supervisor wanted others in Fundacion (who not necessarily knew all the specifics in the Sopo project) to read the document, since I was acting as an ‘external consultant’ for them. I believe this is an important lesson, because sometimes when we do our work we assume that the audience knows as much as we do, and that might have an impact in the quality of our documents.  

Also, after having the experience of meeting some people in Sopo, I changed my perspective a little bit on the project. Another important valuable lesson is that it is important to see “with your own eyes” the reality of the project. When I had the initiative to go there to meet the people, I learned a new side of the story. It does not mean that the reports created by the F.A where false at all, but talking to the people directly makes you think of situations that might not have been considered before, or were not documented. Thanks to this experience, I could give a more real context to my evaluation, and apply a direct example on how small productive parts of the project in Sopo could be better used and create an economic impact in the municipality. One of this was the use of homemade orchards as a way of supplying fruits and vegetables for the community and the stores. 

News Story Week 2

"La humilde casa de doña Concepción Velásquez, incrustada en una empinada montaña en el municipio de Sopó, en donde vive hace más de 20 años, quedó como nueva."

http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-4793706

The Humble House of Ms. Concepcion Velasquez, that is located in a steep cliff in the Sopo municipality, where she has lived over 20 years now looks like new. 

This news story, states that Sopó, was recognized as the only municipality in Colombia that is free from extreme poverty*. Concepcion Velasquez and Jesus Maria Pantano, are part of the 46 families that left extreme poverty and are extremely grateful since according to them, now they do not only have a better life style, but they feel they were dignified. This municipality, was a pilot in the strategy against extreme poverty that the Presidential Agency for Social Accion and the National Planning Department have, that seeks to improve life conditions for the most vulnerable communities in Colombia.

The great achievement for Sopo, has  been successful thanks to efforts from the public and the private sector, by facilitating opportunities of education, a more inclusive health care system, different efforts in nutrition, and work training. This demonstrates that Alpina (whose main factory and offices are located in Sopó) have had significant advancements and have been key players in the efforts of educating people in alimentary and nutritional security. Alpina has been a leader in providing educational opportunities for infants who come from lower income districts in Sopó, named “Gimnasio Campestre Alpina”. Fundación Alpina has also an important presence in Sopó with the project “Sopó, a Territory with Alimentary and Nutritional Security” and has worked constantly with the Major’s Office and other entities that work towards socioeconomic development projects in that area.

This is extremely important for Alpina and F.A, since this will bring attention to Sopó, which is a relatively small town, but it will also show a positive image for Alpina, as it shows that they have a social responsible commitment with the community where they work. This could also attract the attention of other companies who are interested in investing in these type of projects and that could work together with Alpina and F.A, and create more of these projects which satisfies Alpina’s willingness of improve the conditions and wellbeing of the communities. Furthermore, the positive publicity in El Tiempo, the most important newspaper in Colombia, can have an international impact and contribute with Alpina’s efforts of expanding to Ecuador, Venezuela and the United States.

*Extreme poverty is defined by the World Bank as the most severe state of poverty, when people cannot satisfy their basic needs such as food, drinkable water, housing, and health. The World Bank states that this occurs when people leave under 1.25 dollars per day. 

Sunday Summary Week 2

Part A: Worked on an analysis and evaluation of the educative and productive projects that Alpina has across the country. I visited one of the main educative projects in Sopo and interviewed people from the community.

Part B: This week, I started to work in the main project that I will turn in at the end of the internship. I began to write an evaluation and a proposal on how the educative project in Sopó could be strengthened by adding productive components. My proposal is based on giving a better use to family orchards so they can work in association and initially supply fruits and vegetables to the Sopó municipality and then work with Fundación Alpina to find commercialization channels. I analyzed previous reports, annual reports and visited Sopó in order to get a better idea of how the community perceives the project.

This was also an extremely successful week as my supervisor told me that she was very pleased with my work. She told me that it was very important for them to have an external analysis of the project and to have me as I can provide an unbiased and honest opinion of what I think for the project. She also told me that although she gave me suggestions and corrections for the first draft of the final project, she says that I am in the right track and that some of my suggestions will be implemented as part of their future plans with educative projects in Sopó, and if they can in the rest of the educative projects in the country. Thanks to the visit in Sopó, I have strengthened my career thoughts towards Economic Development. It was great to see how a project that is just educational has such an important impact in lower income communities. While visiting, I met “Vera”; she is a community leader and a key player in the project. I was very inspired to see that leaders like her are interested in improving the conditions for her family and her surroundings. I believe that I can make an impact in the world by starting to work in these types of communities and developing projects where people can have access to the tools for improving their live conditions.

I also had the opportunity to meet Eduardo Diaz, the director of Fundación Alpina. It was very interesting to meet him since he told me that he was disappointed with the current emphasis that universities give to economists. He graduated as an economist as well, and we found a lot in common, we discuss how economic theories could be applied better and are more useful if people saw the impact that they could have if it was applied in development issues. He told me that the doors would be open for me if I wanted to go back to work for Fundación Alpina and that he was anxious to see the presentation that I would give to the people at Loras. He also gave me copies of different books, a necklace and other souvenirs from the projects that F.A has worked on. I really enjoyed the conversation with him, and I realized that I would love to have a possibility to have a job like that, where I can direct economic and social development programs in a national level.

Journal Entries Week 2: #3

Part A: Field Work. Visit to Sopo, interviews with community members and participants of the project. Take notes and analyze community's responses. Use the visit to complete the final report.

Part B: I had the opportunity to visit Sopó with Lina Sanchez, the coordinator of that specific project. She showed me around and we visited the main places where the project functioned and she introduced me to various community members as well so I could talk to them and ask them their personal interest and point of view in the project. We went to see the major (the project in Sopó is managed mainly by Alpina and the municipality who have almost the same investment in the project) who unfortunately was not there, but I got to meet the accountant while Lina talked to him about the possibility of extending the project to the next year. It was interesting to see the dynamics of the conversation, it seems that although both parties were interested in continuing, the accountant called the first lady, and asked if they were interested in continuing with the project or not. They had to reevaluate costs and benefits from the project because since January 1^st, new government officials have been elected.

I also had the opportunity to meet different “tenderos” in the area. Tenderos are people who own small markets (imagine an Oki Doki but smaller, less organized and with a smaller variety of products), and are part of the project as Alpina was trying to help them sell fruits and vegetables to encourage people to buy them. F.A provides different types of trainings, informational sessions, and provide them with materials not only to learn how they can sell these products, but how they can make them in their own backyards. This was an important part of the project but after talking to most of the tenderos, I found out that there is not a strict follow up job done by Alpina and the Department of Agricultural Development.  

After visiting and talking to different people, I was able to create a much clearer perspective of what can be done in terms of productive projects for Sopó. I was also able to observe a couple of things that are not necessarily are working right and I can incorporate that as part of my final report for F.A. However, I saw an extremely responsive community from Sopó, they seem to like the project but most importantly, and they trust in the work that is being done by Alpina and are interested in continuing with them in the following years. This proved my assumptions of the good job that F.A has been doing with their projects, because they are truly making people feel that “collective wellbeing” that they mention so often as part of their values. 

Journal Entries Week 2: #2 - Corporate Culture

Part A: Evaluation of Corporate Culture

Part B: Alpina’s corporate culture is clearly seen in its motto “Alpina Alimenta tu Vida”, which means Alpina nourishes your life. Both, Fundación Alpina and Alpina, make sure that through this motto, a sense of collective well-being is felt from the inside of the company to the outside. The fact that Fundación Alpina was created, reflects that a fundamental part of the Corporate Culture of Alpina, consists on building positive relationships with the community and caring for their wellbeing as they work hand to hand with them to create socioeconomic development.

Fundación Alpina, shows that for them, the wellbeing of those who are part and are involved in the company in a way of another are extremely valuable. The board of directors, the supervisors and most of the Fundacion’s members act as equals, as a team and value everyone’s perspectives and opinions when evaluating a project. A situation that illustrates this happened to me this week, when my supervisor told me that Eduardo Diaz, the main manager and director of Fundacion Alpina was waiting for me in his office. He was extremely welcoming and asked me about my personal life, what were my career goals, what did I liked about the company, of the project that I was working on, some criticisms or things that could improve. I was also amazed that he was taking notes of things that I had to say to him, and that he seemed to enjoy the conversation.

The work environment is very enjoyable. The communication with other workers is constant due to the interconnectedness of the projects that are taking place right now in the company. For these reason, there is a lot of team work; starting from the project manager, to the graphic designer, then to the person in charge of budgeting. It seems that everyone enjoys working with each other and to communicate constantly in order to develop better ideas and avoid flaws.

The dress code is business casual. In some cases you see people wearing more casual outfits due to the amount of “on-the-field” amount of work that needs to be done. Up to the moment I feel very comfortable with the environment and with the people that I work with, they are willing to help and explain everything that I need. I also enjoy that they treat me as an equal, and that they make me feel that my job, although I am just an intern, is important for them, for Fundación Alpina, and for the community. 

Part A: Synthesizing research, continue with evaluation and suggestions about how to introduce productive projects in educative projects (for example the possibility of starting micro credits, larger dairy farms, financial and business education etc.)

Part B: I have advanced a lot in the project. I have been doing a lot of reading and analyzing a lot of documents and reports from previous years. My supervisor told me that it was a good idea to add a context to my project and provide background information about Alpina, the beginning of Fundacion Alpina, what are the main components of the educative and productive projects and a brief explanation of these. The idea is that this document can be read by analysts and people that are not familiar with the project, so they can get familiar with whatever needs to get done in a concrete way.  These has delayed the process of finding ways in which the productive and educative projects could be integrated, but I believe this will make my final document for them stronger as it can be read by any audience that is not familiar with the projects.

As of now, I find fascinating the work that Fundación does for people in the country. It is great to work for people that care not only about the success of the company but the impact that they can make in the communities where they are now. As I assumed, I have been doing a lot of research and reading for the reports that I have been working on. At this point is where I have been doing the most research since I need to evaluate what parts of the productive project can be added to the educative ones, which is a significant work load since the variables change significantly across the regions. Differently from the beginning, I believe that although the research process I have to do it by myself, the amount of work that has been put as a team in order to create the projects is amazing. In this way, I believe that I am working as part of the team and not just doing an individual research that they will use for the future. I feel part of Fundación, and this is one of the assumptions that I believed changed with time. At the beginning I thought I was going to be “just” an intern and that my work was not going to be appreciated but I was completely wrong. Alpina, as part of their corporate culture, have taken me as an equally important part of their puzzle. As explained before, this might come from their values based on creating a collective benefit where the work is done as a team and help is given and received in a reciprocal way.

Tomorrow I will have the opportunity to visit the project taking place in Sopó, this is going to help me to finish my report, interview a couple of people, if possible take pictures and see a different perspective from the one Alpina has shown in their reports. I believe this is going to be extremely beneficial for the evaluation of the projects and determining how some of the productive projects that I have analyzed in theory can fit in the project “Sopó, a Territory of Alimentary and Nutritional Security”. My plan is to finish the report by the end of the week and have the final week to do revisions, and take suggestions from my supervisor. 

Journal Entries Week 2: #1

Part A: Evaluation of the performance from the productive and educational projects that Fundacion Alpina has across the country. Read Annual Reports, Board of Directors letters, Sustainability Reports, National documents related with alimentary and nutritional security. 


Part B: This week, I began a process of evaluation of the projects that Fundación Alpina has. As explained before, F.A has two main types of projects to develop around Colombia. The first type, are considered “Productive Projects” and are projects that are specifically designed to improve productive practices for small lower income producers across the country. Fundación Alpina, also believes in the importance of providing Educational projects to create changes in the nutritional and alimentary practices of the communities in order to create changes that affect the entire community. As of 2011, the main projects that they have been working on since 2009 are:

Region/City	Name of the Project	Duration
Antioquia	Endorsing Social and Local Development in Entrerrios by Promoting a better use of Free time and strengthening the process of integration between Alpina and the Community	Aug 2010- Nov 2011
Antioquia	Promoting Alimentary, Nutritional and Educational Security	Dec 2010- Apr 2011
La Guajira	Cattle-Goat Herds in La Guajira, Implementing Good Practices of Rearing and Breeding	Oct 2009-Dec 2012
Cauca	Socio-Economic and Organizational Development of Small Milk Producers under an Inclusive Business Model	Oct 2009-Dec 2012
Cauca	Business and Social Development of Small Milk and Cheese Indigenous Tribes Producers	Sept 2009- Dec 2010
Cauca, Popayán	Pilot Project in the Popayán Plateau to evaluate the impact of the use of bio fertilizers in Small dairy farms	Apr 2010- Dec 2011
Sopó, Cundinamarca	Alimentary and Nutritional Security in Sopó	Feb 2010- Dec 2011
Bogotá D.C	Alternatives to Small Dairy Producers in Bogota	Aug 2009-Dec 2011
Bolivar	Reconstruction of El Salado. Agribusiness, health and Nutrition	Oct 2009- Dec2002

At the beginning of this week, I was assigned to read the reports from the Board of Directors, budget, performance reports, and project guidelines from 2009, 2010 and 2011 to see the evolution of the projects within the two phases of the project. This week I began working on the main project, which is to evaluate the performance of the project and evaluate how the productive projects could be incorporated in the educational projects, or if this is even possible and convenient. My final report will be viewed as an “analysis made by an  external consultant” in order to review in a comprehensive way the outcomes of the project. I believe that by the end of the week I will be done with the project since now I have access to all the information relevant to it. Later in the week, I will have the opportunity to go to Sopó, which has one of the most successful educational projects on alimentary and nutritional security, and talk to a couple people who have been involved in the project. I believe that their perspectives will be extremely important in order to have an unbiased perspective of the projects developed by Fundación Alpina.

 I believe that in the first two weeks I have learned to be more efficient with time management, to organize better the work load, by being able to summarize and take the main points of each research and put them together in the reports presented to my boss. Also, I have learned to analyze and contrast the different stages of a project in order to have a critical analysis of the reality of each. 

News Story Week 1

600 Small Producers from the Cesar Area get Closer to the goals in the proyect "Good Agricultural Practices"

"600 Pequenos Productores Cesarenses Avanzan en 'Buenas Practicas Agricolas'"

http://www.elpilon.com.co/inicio/600-pequenos-productores-cesarenses-avanzan-en-buenas-practicas-agricolas/

The director from Fundacion Alpina, Eduardo Díaz, and the governor from Cesar (a Colombian region), Cristian Moreno, announced the success of a program created as a partnership between the government from Cesar and Fundacion Alpina. The project intends to help to improve the agricultural procedures that small farmers use to cultivate fruits, vegetables, and produce milk. The project has helped over 600 small producers, and there has been an investment of over two thousand million pesos. The news report explains that this project has helped specifically 645 producers, who distribute their products in 72 districts from 10 different municipalities. According to the report, the intervention of Fundacion Alpina has helped these producers to improve their practices by introducing new technologies and with the support of Alpina experts and therefore improve their income as the quality of the products that they trade has been getting better in the past year. This also has implications for the buyer of the products, as they are getting better products, at a better price.

The impact that this event has in Fundacion Alpina is extremely significant. This is one of the main projects that the organization has developed and has shown success and has been nationally recognized. Furthermore, the great impact that Fundacion Alpina has generated in this region gives a positive image to the company. This is important because Alpina has been growing exponentially not only in a national level but has been expanding to places like Ecuador, Venezuela and most recently to the United States. This type of news that reflect that Alpina is not only a company that delivers dairy products, but also has Fundacion Alpina in charge of projects that promote sustainable development for lower income areas, which gives a good impression of the company in an international level as well, especially since this project was recognized in the news. The influence in the media then could be a key component to help Alpina to develop in an international atmosphere, but also in a national level, to win the trust of the places where they work at. 

Sunday Summary Week 1

Part A: Understand the organization, what they work on, and the importance of their work in a national level in terms of development and sustainability


Part B: This week, it was an excellent opportunity to understand the values, mission and vision better. I was assigned to read multiple documents that explained the progress of an educational project that Fundacion Alpina has been working on for the past two years named “Sopó, A Place with Nutritional and Alimentary Security”. This project, intends to provide better nutritional and alimentary conditions to the municipality of Sopó, through various campaigns designed for educational institutions, day care centers, small food store businesses and the general public. I was also assigned to write a report on how this project could be adapted to other municipalities in the rest of the country.

It was fascinating to learn that a company as big as Alpina, has a main purpose dedicated towards sustainability issues. I really enjoyed learning about the project because as I read the theoretical background of the project, I realized that more than feeding the people in the municipality, F.A’s goal is to teach them on how they can do it by themselves, how they can implement best practices at home. This demonstrates that Fundación Alpina does not engage in assistencialism or practices that create dependence on them from the community. This means that they believe as an organization that Sopo’s population needs to be active participants. They believe in the importance of working together with the population in order to see a real change. This is shown in theory and in the results obtained so far.

 It shocked me how important is for them to create a sustainable economic and social development. These are the two main things that I would like to work for in my future career. I am sure that I want to design my career in a way that I can work in a field where I can create economic development opportunities. I did not realize that multinational companies like Alpina had such an important social responsible component as part of their pillars. This has made me open my options of fields of work in the future, perhaps a company like Alpina who works towards improving the lives of the people who live close to the communities where they work at. It would be interesting to look more into other companies that have similar projects.