Support young leaders to change Latam's future

Dear LALA Supporters,

As the year comes to a close, we’re thrilled to share the remarkable progress your support has made possible. Together, we’ve empowered a new generation of young leaders, paving the way for a brighter future in Latin America.

While we eagerly await the release of our official 2024 Annual Report in 2025, we’re excited to offer you an exclusive glimpse into this year’s incredible journey!

Thanks to your generosity, the "Support 20 Young Leaders to Change LatAm's Future" project has been a tremendous success. At the Latin American Leadership Academy (LALA), we remain steadfast in our mission to develop ethical and transformational leaders equipped to address the region’s most pressing challenges. Since our founding in 2017, the impact we’ve achieved is a testament to the unwavering dedication of supporters like you.

Warm regards,

Oriana Torres, Director of Development
On behalf of the LALA Team

Key Milestones in 2024

I. LALA Brazil: A New Chapter and Our First CEO

We’re proud to announce that LALA Brazil is now a reality! This year, we welcomed Fernanda Caloi as our inaugural CEO in Brazil, a key milestone in establishing our first hub in the country. Her leadership is already driving LALA’s reach and impact.

Feel free to explore the media coverage we received and watch the webinar where Fer introduced herself to the LALA community.

This is just the beginning of our country-based expansion strategy, aimed at creating hubs across Latin America to provide a more localized and relevant experience for our youth. Until new hubs open, all students will continue to be served on a continental level.

II. Growing Applications Across LatAm

In 2024, we held two application cycles (February-March and July-August), receiving over 1,600 applications from talented young leaders eager to join our community and create lasting change.

III. Engaging Over 2,600 Youth since 2017

Since 2017, over 12,000 young leaders have applied to join LALA, with more than 2,600 participating in our boot camps. These leaders hail from 20+ countries, with 70% coming from underrepresented backgrounds, including LGBTQIA+, rural, Afro-descendant, Indigenous, low-income, and first-generation college students.

IV. Launching a New Mentorship Program Cycle

This year, our mentorship program connected 122 mentor-mentee pairs with over 240 participants, fostering meaningful, cross-generational relationships to support our leaders’ personal and professional journeys.

If you’re interested in becoming a mentor, sign up here to express your interest (this is not an application form; we will contact you when applications open, typically in July each year).

V. Expanding University Access

We launched a new cohort of our University Placement Program, supporting 34 exceptional students in applying to top U.S. universities and securing scholarships. This program bridges the gap for high-achieving, low-income youth, ensuring they have a fair chance to achieve their academic dreams.

VI. Innovating in Fundraising

Through our enhanced Student Fundraising Program, 260 students collectively raised over $26,000 to attend leadership boot camps. Additionally, our first-ever Shark Tank LALA brought together 40 youth pitching their ideas to 11 donors, securing an additional $3,000 in contributions.

VII. EcoVision Sustainability Summit

On October 30, we hosted the EcoVision Sustainability Summit in partnership with the Mitsubishi Corporation Foundation for the Americas. This event connected hundreds of youth passionate about environmental issues, fostering collaboration and innovation to address critical challenges.

Check out the public keynotes from the event here and a quick recap of the initiative here.

VIII. First external impact evaluation

Sponsored by our esteemed donors at VelezReyes+, the LALA Team worked closely with 60 Decibels in preparing and deploying the first external impact evaluation, which involved a sample of 275 LALíderes. You can download the draft report from here.

Thank you!

Your unwavering support has been instrumental in identifying, developing, and connecting these young leaders. Together, we are creating opportunities for youth to thrive, regardless of their background, and empowering them to drive meaningful change in their communities.

Thank you for being an integral part of this journey. With your continued partnership, we look forward to shaping Latin America’s future, one leader at a time.

Dear Supporters,

We are thrilled to share the remarkable progress and heartfelt update from our "Support 20 Young Leaders to Change LatAm's Future" project. Thanks to your generous support, we have empowered young leaders to make meaningful changes in their communities.

At the Latin American Leadership Academy (LALA) we are on a mission to unleash the potential of young leaders across Latin America. We aim to transform the region by developing ethical, transformational leaders equipped to tackle the region's most pressing social issues.

We’ve had great results since our beginnings back in 2017, and we are happy to share some of our most relevant numbers with you in retrospect:

To April 2023, we’ve had over 10,000 young leaders applying to join our community, from which more than 2,400 incredible young leaders were selected to participate in our leadership boot camps. These LALideres come from over 20 countries in Latin America and 70% come from an underrepresented background. We consider the following elements as underrepresented backgrounds: LGTBIQ+ community, rural communities, afro-descendants and Indigenous people, low-income communities, and first-generation attending college. 

Furthermore, we work hard to make sure that money is not a barrier to joining us, so we give scholarships to around 90% of our selected candidates on average. In 2023, 87% of the selected cohort received an average scholarship of 64% for their costs of attendance. As donors, you were a fundamental part of this!

In 2023 we also had 15 bootcamps: 2 in-person (in Medellin, Colombia) and 13 virtual. These were learning spaces where students met incredible young leaders from all over the continent, encountering a unique community full of people dreaming of making Latin America a better place for all. If you want to remember the magic of our boot camps, we invite you to check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34NQyd2fhSw 

The average Net Promoter Score (how much would participants recommend the program to other people) of these camps was +93, incredible results that showcase their high satisfaction with our boot camps. Furthermore, our LALideres reported significant improvements in self-confidence, leadership commitment, resilience, and self-awareness after attending their camps.

Besides our leadership boot camps, we continued offering our signature programs, which are part of our ecosystem of opportunities. Here are the results of some of them: 

University Placement Program

This is a program where we support low-income, high-achieving students to apply to their dream universities in the US. We also accompany them during the scholarship application process, understanding the difficulties this type of process may represent for students from vulnerable backgrounds. Here are some of the latest results: 

- Participants: 24 LALíderes took part in this program, from which 50% are first-generation attending university

- Scholarships Offered: Over $1.8 million in scholarships for freshman year

- 20 fully-funded scholarship offers, in colleges like Harvard, Stanford, NYU, University of Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins University, Bard College (Berlin), Barry University, Bowdoin College, Carleton College, Haverford College, Minerva College, Smith College, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Mentorship Program

Through our mentorship program, we aim to facilitate meaningful and impactful relationships between LALideres and skilled mentors, seeking to provide support in overcoming challenges and barriers students face. This program is a 6-month initiative where volunteers directly contribute to our LALideres’ development by mentoring them. Some of our last season results: 

- Mentoring Matches: 110 mentoring pairs formed.

- Mentoring Sessions: 370 sessions conducted.

- Impact: 94% of mentees and 87% of mentors reported significant positive changes in their personal and professional lives.

Our program is currently open for applications for Mentors until July 1st, 2024! If you want to become one of them and transform the life of a young Latin American leader, apply now here: https://survey.sogolytics.com/r/9Omjpf 

LALíderes highlights

Felipe Meneses - Brazil

Felipe, who was part of our first camp cohort, is now the Co-founder of Hyperplane. Thanks to his amazing work in tech entrepreneurship, he was the first Brazilian ever to be selected to be part of the Thiel Foundation Fellowship! The support from this community will propel his work! From the northeastern state of Sergipe to anywhere he dreams of achieving! Learn more about Felipe’s story here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7183082570413195265 

Luiza Vilanova - Brazil

Luiza has won the “Movimento Luz na Educação” (Movement Light in Education) Awards, organized by Brazil’s largest Broadcasting Company and Communications Conglomerate - Globo. She achieved fantastic recognition for her work on the “Tocando em Frente” project, which shares impact stories and extracurricular opportunities in an original curriculum for public schools. Her belief in education as a transformation platform continues to inspire us! Learn more about Luiza’s story here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7196977722403745792 

We invite you to follow our LinkedIn page for constant updates on LALíderes stories: https://co.linkedin.com/school/somos-lala/ 

Thanks to your support LALA continues to make significant strides in identifying, developing, and connecting young leaders across Latin America. Your contributions have been instrumental in enabling these achievements, ensuring that promising youth, regardless of their backgrounds, have access to opportunities that empower them to drive positive change in their communities and beyond.

Thank you for being a part of this incredible journey and helping us shape Latin America's future, one leader at a time!

Links:

• Webpage
• Our bootcamps