Deep Gratitude to Hali Brook de Chocamani and The Fundación Tekove Restauración Familiar Bolivia

Deep Gratitude to Hali Brook de Chocamani and The Fundación Tekove Restauración Familiar Bolivia

The purpose of the Leadership Challenge™ is to create a mutually beneficial learning experience for an international organization and graduate students in the first year of their Master of Arts in Global Leadership. To create this learning experience, some inquiry with the organizational sponsor is necessary and we are grateful to Hali Brook de Chocamani, Tekove Foundation, for her commitment of time and voluntary engagement in the activity: “Assessing Risk Factors and Supporting Vulnerable Children in Bolivia”.

The Fundación Tekove Restauración Familiar Bolivia (Tekove Foundation) is focused on helping vulnerable families, and particularly those with children at risk, very often Indigenous children of “exploitation, abuse, neglect and/or abandonment” (Tekove Foundation, What We Do, n.d.). Their website lists their central objectives: 

• Seek the comprehensive development (educational, spiritual, physical) of children and adolescents and their families with limited economic resources. 
• Establish the promotion of alternative plans and programs for social and productive life to improve the quality of human life of children and adolescents.
• Promote, support, carry out, direct and participate in activities, welfare, spiritual, cultural, educational and any other projects that contribute to the improvement of children and adolescents. 
• Give talks, courses and workshops for educational, spiritual and psychological purposes for children and adolescents. 
• Promote and develop any type of activity aimed at the benefit of children and adolescents. 

Echoing the work of Stanford (2021) as well as McKinley and Lilly (2021), 

the Tekove Foundation’s …areas of intervention with children and their parents include initial situational analysis, family plan, social monitoring (health, schooling, housing, food) and psychological intervention based on therapies with individual children, and workshops linked to the comprehensive care and protection of children and adolescents. (Tekove Foundation, What We Do, n.d.) 

The problem of human trafficking, and more specifically the human trafficking of children, requires immediate and mindful attention. In Bolivia, where human trafficking has become a significant challenge, the Fundación Tekove Restauración Familiar Bolivia is doing just that. 

Addressing the concerns Stanford et al. (2021) explored, Hali Brook de Chocamani is focusing, among other things, on the challenge of assessing and prioritizing risk to individual children to prioritize interventions as effectively as possible. MA in Global Leadership students’ leadership challenge was to work together in teams to build their understanding and make relevant recommendations towards assessing risk factors for children and families in Bolivia without losing the very human focus of the Tekove Foundation. This was not a simple assignment. 

Significantly, this assignment involved looking inward and exploring the nature of systemic inequities. Regardless of our ethnicity, where our ancestors lived their lives, or our level of awareness of these issues, mindful reflection has been identified as a critical aspect of any complex change (Scharmer, 2008). Similarly, there can be no one simple approach to resolving complex issues (Snowden & Boone, 2007). Rather, we must be open to initiatives of small and large scale as diverse and complex as the challenges we face.

And finally,

The task before the human race is daunting. For the first time, we have to defy our own history as a species and create a new, more interdependent civilization that consumes less rather than more energy, but in a way that allows empathy to continue to mature and global consciousness to expand until we have filled the earth with our compassion and grace rather than our spent energy. --Jeremy Rifkin 

Above all we must realize that each of us makes a difference with our life. Each of us impacts the world around us every single day. We have a choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place – or not to bother. --Jane Goodall

MA in Global Leadership students presented their ideas as teams to Hali Brook de Chocamani, the Tekove Foundation and a panel and had the opportunity to engage and learn from Hali Brook de Chocamani, representing the efforts of her team, and the families in the community. Students from the global leadership class have combined all of their recommendations and considerations into one document translated into Spanish. 

The Leadership Challenge™ is a cornerstone of the first residency of the Global Leadership programs and the Master of Arts in Leadership programs. For more information or to inquire about becoming a potential sponsor, please contact us at leadership.admin@royalroads.ca.

Photo credits: Tekove Foundation

Resources:

McKinley, C. & Lilly, J. (2021). “It's in the family circle”: Communication promoting Indigenous family resilience. Family Relations: Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Family Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12600 Vol. 71, Issue 1. 108-129. 

Scharmer, O. (2008). Uncovering the blind spot of leadership. Leader to Leader. 52-59. Winter 2008. 

Snowdon, D., & Boone, M. (2007, November). A leader’s framework for decision-making. Harvard Business Review, 62(11), 69-76. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. 

Stanford, K., Cappetta, B. & Macias-Konstantopoulos. (2021). Sex and labor trafficking in Paraguay: Risk factors, needs assessment, and the role of health care. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260518788364 Journal of Interpersonal Violence. Vol. 36(9-10) 4806–4831 Tekove Foundation. (n.d.). 

Tekove Foundation: Family Restoration Bolivia. https://tekove.org/