My TAVOS Manifesto

I grew up in a country in crisis. Inequity, poverty, misery were always part of my daily live. They were my neighbors, my classmates, my baseball pals, my borrowers, my friends. I grew up in a middle class avenue that crosses through, still now-a-days, a numbers of barrios with houses hosting families of dignity but with neither access to decent social services, nor jobs or good education opportunities.

I grew up in a country in crisis. I never saw prosperity in the news. All I saw, all I heard, all I read, all I remember is about the misery of the inner human condition. Communities frustrated by the continuous broken electoral promises. Communities vulnerable and dependent of the gift of the electoral turn with their hidden agendas. Communities impacted by the frequent waves of the oil economy. Communities waiting for the bureaucratic machinery to reach the end. Communities excluded of any access to decent social services. All I heard was corruption. All I read was lack of hope. All I saw was no future.

I grew up in a country in crisis. But I am learning that we can flip the page.

Since the early days of 2004, I have been working with a number of people from different parts of the world who have given me plenty of hope. Every one of us, in our own communities, alone or together, is starting to realize our little piece of this puzzle of human development. I have been very fortunate to find empathy and resonating goals. Now I have partners and volunteers to materialize our piece of the puzzle. We call it TAVOS.

TAVOS responds to the need of the communities where I grew up and to the need of many communities in similar situation worldwide. TAVOS envisions an environment that helps neighbors realize their own power for change. TAVOS will do for social services what microfinance has done for financial services. TAVOS will be a sustainable system that helps neighbors work together and materialize their access to the social services in need. The mission of TAVOS is to help neighbors in these communities aggregate and coordinate their actions so they can help themselves and others.

I grew up in a country in crisis. But my daughter will grow up in a country building its good future. This is my life commitment.