By Fernanda Hopenhaym and Elena Arengo, Co-Executive Directors of PODER
It’s been ten years of walking together on this road; ten years of learning; ten years of challenges and successes; ten years building this road together.
On this road, we ourselves have grown, and we’ve seen a movement grow to demand accountability from companies for their abuses and impacts on human rights.
Our team, which was born back in 2010 with two people, has multiplied and now has 30 members committed to this cause, contributing our talent and our constant perseverance. PODER has transformed itself, incorporating new knowledge, new perspectives and new leadership.
Since our beginnings, working hand-in-hand with communities affected by human rights abuses by companies has been our insignia. Accompanying and strengthening organizing from the ground up is the central pillar of our efforts, like in the case of the Watershed Committees of the Sonora River, the Union of Ejidos of Puebla, and the Communities for the Defense of Land, Water and Life of Atcolhua, in the Northern Sierra of Puebla. We’ve walked together on this road, demanding that the authorities, regulators and investors do their job of protecting human rights and the environment, and guarantee access to justice. We’ve knocked on all the doors, so that the rights of communities to make decisions that affect their present and their future is respected, and that the damages from the past are repaired.
At PODER, our investigative spirit is at the center of our identity. We work tirelessly to correct the asymmetries in access to information, and for civil society organizations to have the knowledge they need to defend their rights. We untangle the complex corporate structures; we follow the money until we understand exactly who benefits from each of the projects in the strategic industries that we focus on, and thus determine – together with the communities that are directly affected – how we can use that information to demand accountability. And when necessary, we use legal strategies to guarantee the protection of rights and demand reparations for damages.
Some say that we have an obsession with the phenomenon of corporate capture of the state. And in fact, we do! That is perhaps the most serious structural problem that affects our societies today. We not only see the world through that lens, but we also try to uncover the different forms that corporate capture takes, whether it is in public procurement, concessions and permits, approval of laws and structural reforms, or in the judicial system. We spend hours and hours conceiving and designing possible solutions to that problem, so enormous and prejudicial to our democracies.
We advance these responses through our strategic engagement in national and international spaces of influence. We are interested in changing the rules of the game in Mexico and Latin America, and for that reason – hand-in-hand with other organizations, rights defenders and communities – we work for changes in public policy, legislation, concrete practices, and international standards and conventions.
This would not be possible without our work in a range of alliances. Another fundamental pillar of our work is to contribute to building collective power: not only with the affected communities – who are the central actors in these processes – but also with other civil society groups in different spheres, including journalists. This work has gained more relevance for PODER and has made important contributions in uncovering cases of corruption and state capture.
In addition to exposing these issues, we also seek to reach public opinion through communications, so that society does not remain indifferent in the face of abuses by the private sector and unbridled corporate power. We generate new forms of telling stories and new narratives in order to name and describe the enormous challenges we face. After ten years, we are now showing a new face, with a renovated website, as we project our Latin American perspective with PODERlatam.org.
In these ten years, we’ve blazed a trail in the area of technology, data and digital security. The right to access information, the right to privacy, and the appropriate use of technology tools: all these are key issues for PODER. Yes, we are perhaps a bit “geeky”, but that has allowed us to advance agendas, while at the same time protecting our communications, personal data and information.
The road that we’ve covered and all of what we’ve achieved has also been thanks to the fundamental support of our administrative and organizational strengthening teams, who work closely with the programmatic team to guarantee smooth operations at PODER.
Our achievements have always counted on the trust of foundations and donors who have believed in us and have provided the generous support needed to experiment, be bold, stretch horizons, and swim in the wide, blue ocean, with successes and errors along the way. Our donors know that we are in this with a long-term view and a tall commitment to challenge the established order.
On this journey, we’ve also committed as an organization to confront patriarchy, as part of our logic of dismantling power structures. Thanks to the push from compañeras who have joined us, PODER has become a feminist organization. And we couldn’t be prouder.
In these ten years of our journey, we have partnered with diverse organizations, collectives, allies and communities, learning from each other and working constantly to move forward, making sure we don’t take steps backward.
We are now ten years old. Looking back, we can see all the lessons we’ve learned. We see roads that were rocky, many uphill; others (fewer) smooth. We see a common road that brings us together with partners, so that we can look in each others’ eyes and see ourselves in each other. On that road, we have supported each other and held each other in the face of adversity. We have faced down powerful actors, despite fears and risks.
We continue on this road and building together the PODER that today celebrates ten years, as well as the PODER of the future. We face huge challenges; challenges that have been exposed, more tan ever, by the pandemic currently affecting the entire world. In our region, there are profound inequalities that have become even more evident when we see who has been affected the most by the public health and the economic crises. We are alarmed at the increased attacks against human rights defenders, not only in the worst forms – assassinations – but also in the de legitimization of organizations that question development models that favor the interests of companies over the rights of communities. And we are also alarmed by the havoc wreaked by climate change, in which the unregulated and irresponsible activity of corporations is also complicit.
These and other challenges give us the strength to maintain and redouble our commitment to the collective struggle for accountability, in the words of Antonio Machado “making the road as we walk.” We are confident that as we walk towards our future, we will continue to build this road together.