The Rebellion of the Everyday: Generous Women Changing Latin America

La rebelión de lo cotidiano. Mujeres generosas que cambian América Latina [The Rebellion of the Everyday. Generous Women Changing Latin America] by Florencia Roitstein and Andrés A. Thompson, addresses how philanthropy is manifested in Latin America, where local women activists are redefining the contours of social transformation and political activism.

­­­­­­­­­About the book: 

This book chronicles the stories of 23 grassroots activists nominated for the GENEROSAS award (instituted by ELLAS- Women and Philanthropy.  These women, including award winners Lucinda Mamani Choque (Bolivia), Sonnia Estela España Quiñonez (Guayaquil, Ecuador) and Rosa Vilches Valencia (Chile), have been at the forefront of leading social change within their communities. Through their narratives, the authors illustrate how philanthropy and generosity are deployed by women at the grassroots level to transform the lives of women in Latin America. They uplift stories of courage and resilience amidst a deeply fragmented political struggle involving drug dealers, human traffickers, patriarchal structures, corrupted security forces and suspected politicians. At its core, La rebellion celebrates the lives and generosity of these women philanthropists, who are redefining what it means “to give” in Latin America. Read more about the book here.

About the authors:

The authors work co-founded the action programme – ELLAS – Women and Philanthropy at CEDES (Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad), Argentina – to promote the engagement of women in philanthropy in Latin America.  Both are alumni of the International Fellows Program at the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, The Graduate Center, CUNY.

Andrés A. Thompson has worked in the global development and social change field for 35 years. Based in Uruguay, he worked for 16 years as Program Director at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation managing philanthropy and volunteerism, racial equality, and youth development in Latin America and the Caribbean. He also served as head of the Brazil office of StreetFootballWorld, a nonprofit organization that uses football as a tool for development. He currently is Coordinator at Program ELLAS. As a consultant, he worked for UNICEF-Argentina, the Latin American Council of Social Sciences, and various nonprofit organizations in Argentina and Latin America.

Andrés served as a researcher at the National Council of Scientific and Technological Research and the Center for the Study of State and Society (CEDES), Argentina. He has published widely on philanthropy, NGOs and development.  He served as director of the Argentine magazine Tercer Sector and is currently a member of the editorial boards of the journals Voluntas and Alliance.

He received his master’s degree in development studies from the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague and is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

Florencia Roitstein is a professor at the School of Management of San Andrés University in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and visiting professor at the School of Management in Normandy and the University of Lyon, France. She is co-creator and director of the Program ELLAS, Argentina, and founder and director of the School of CSR and Philanthropy in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. Previously, she was a researcher at CONICET, INSEAD Business School, professor of CSR at ESSEC in France, program director for International Planned Parenthood Federation in New York, and Argentina’s under secretary of state for sustainable development (2006 – 2008).

Florencia also served as a consultant to international organizations (World Bank, UNDP, IDB among others) and multinational companies, addressing the interface between environmental sustainability, social equity, and economic development.

She received a Ph.D. in social psychology from the Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales of Paris, France.

An integral part of The Graduate Center, the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (CPCS) focuses on giving, volunteerism, and nonprofit entrepreneurship by individual donors, foundations, and corporations in the United States and around the world.

The Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society is committed to strengthening civil society through education, interdisciplinary research, and leadership training, and works to link academic approaches with practitioner needs.  Under the leadership of director Kathleen D. McCarthy, its signature International Fellows Program for scholar-practitioners presently counts over 257 alumni from 74 countries across 6 continents. The program’s alumni have gone on to found new associations and foundations, create university courses and research centers, establish fellowships in philanthropy, and staff and lead many of the institutions and programs spearheading the globalization of modern philanthropy. Program alumni present and publish widely in the field of civil society, helping to create a literature on the field in their own languages.  Other Center projects include: organizing and hosting year-long seminars for CUNY faculty and advanced graduate students to examine topics in civil society from a variety of viewpoints and disciplines; global research and edited volumes on women and philanthropy; developing a 14-volume curriculum guide series to facilitate the integration of the study of philanthropy into the curricula at colleges and universities, and providing a tool for nonprofit professionals in the area of development and fundraising. The Center supports GC students via research/travel awards and William Randolph Hearst Graduate Assistantships intended for women and minority students working in philanthropy, civil society, international development and global studies.

Learn more at The Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society official page on the CUNY Graduate Center website.

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