Advocacy
​Imaginalco beyond Malinalco
Hablemos del Tolueno
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Hablemos del Tolueno is an Imaginalco initiative that is joined by four other civil society organizations: México Unido Contra la Delindencia, ReverdeSer Colectivo, El Consejo Impulsor de Calidad para el Desarrollo Integral de México and the Gonzalo Río Arronte Foundation, which have decided to collaborate with us to make visible the problems related to the consumption of inhalable substances and explore ways to address the causes and impacts of this problem.
Toluene is an essential chemical that is used to make products for industrial purposes and is the most widely consumed inhalant in Mexico. At Imaginalco we know that the consumption of this substance directly affects the health of the most vulnerable children and young people, and that is why we want to expand our reach and influence public policies that address the problem in a comprehensive and long-term, in addition to raising awareness with education about the serious consequences of its consumption.
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That is why in 2019 we started this initiative and organized an intersectoral forum to talk about the problem and start exploring possible ways and routes for advocacy on policies and programs to address it. Representatives of more than 30 institutions from different sectors participated in the forum: national civil society, international organizations, academia, local and federal government, the media.
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In the "Let's talk about Toluene" discussion, there was openness and willingness to listen and it was recognized that this is a problem that includes various actors: from the communities that are the center of this debate, the users, the organizations that work with the population affected by the problem, even the economic actors. Collaborating with Imaginalco and witnessing the level of professionalism, community social organization and warmth that they have developed as a team was very welcoming. Seeking to promote networks, promoting collaborative platforms between institutions that can generate and develop actions and strategies together. That is why the work that Imaginalco does is invaluable, as it seeks to build social responses to complex circumstances that we have to attend to. Recognizing the problem and developing this type of effort is invaluable.
Andrés Hirsch Soler, Founder of ReverdeSer Colectivo
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Detection, prevention and care of child sexual abuse
This year we started the project "Development of local capacities to detect, prevent and attend to child sexual abuse in Malinalco." Our objective is to generate and implement an intersectoral strategy that addresses this problem comprehensively, and that is replicable in other similar contexts in the country, to protect the right of children to a life free of violence.
To do this, we started a diagnosis of the incidence of sexual abuse in Malinalco, as well as the existing instances at the local level to attend to it: its obligations, capacities and challenges. Based on these diagnoses, our team is designing a strategy to be implemented at the local level that includes prevention, detection and immediate and long-term care of the problems that affect a high percentage of the population with which we work.
In this first stage we work in collaboration with the National Institute of Pediatrics, and in the following stages we will continue to strengthen local and national alliances, since we know that such a complex problem requires the participation of many actors in society.