Nathalie Worp
This year the International Festival for Social Innovation (FiiS) was held for the first time in Barranco Lima.
'Donde Comienza el Cambio' (where change begins) is the slogan. The FiiS Fair is an free event that , after succesful editions in Chile and Argentina, is brought to Peru by the University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC). The purpose of the festival is to bring various projects and initiatives together which are working on finding solutions for social world problems in an innovative way. This get-together is all in the form of an relaxing festival with live-music, small shops, foodtrucks, and the opportunity to chat and share ideas.
The setting was very nice, a lot of interest projects were presented.
Compadre is a small enterprise which produces organic coffee, roasted by Peruvian farmers from the Amazone themselves using solar energy, aiming at a fairer and more sustainable economy.
RecyLabs is an organisation which re-uses 'e-waste' (electronic waste) in a playful way in order to stimulate children to discover the possibilities of technology for their own future.
Another enterprise Yaqua sells water that contributes to the diminution of the sale of embottled water. In Peru the water of the tap is not potable; Yaqua's vision is to give all Peruvians access to clean and healthy tap water.
L.O.O.P. was also one of the organisations which had a stand at the event and today we volunteered in helping them reaching people, telling their message and selling products. The directors of L.O.O.P., Irene and Nadia, had the opportunity to speak on stage about the work of the company!
We spend a whole day at the Fiis Fair and met a lot of interesting and inspiring people.
The event was quite good organized, but there weren't as much as people as the organisation of FiiS expected. The reason forthe low attendance could be that this type of markets is new for Peruvian concepts. But it was very interesting though to see that there are people who are interested in these sort of 'green' fairs and also that these type of fairs are up-coming in Peru!
Plastic Waste Lima