Karina Vazquez Latcom
It was six years ago that Latcom, an expert media-trading company at a global level and a specialist in Out Of Home (OOH) media, launched in Argentina the sustainability project Una Vuelta+ (Once Arorund+), which aims at recycling one of the materials the company deals with most. “It’s a program that not only reuses canvases, it also creates possibilities of employment for women in very vulnerable life situations,” said Karina Vazquez, commerce director of Latcom’s LATAM and LATAM USA. “Today we’re in seven countries of Latin America, including Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, with the clear intention to keep this project growing, because we see it as very positive, both for preserving the environment and for helping people at a social level where they have very great needs,” Vazquez said. Una Vuelta+ was developed by an alliance with the Fundación Gestionar Esperanzas (Managing Hopes Foundation). Previously the waste material was delivered through the foundation to institutions that later used them in different ways, as on roofs and in windows. “But as time went by we didn’t stick to that guideline and decided to be more ambitious, daring to create value out of that trash and aid those vulnerable communities,” Vazquez said. This program includes not only training in turning old products into new, as with dressmaking, but also the assurance through advertising that the final destination will be reached for such products as handbags, overnight bags, cartridge cases, awmings, dust covers and more.. From Latcom we manage with our advertisers not only the donation of the canvases but also the purchase of the products made with them, often as the different brands’ merchandising material, thus completing the reuse cycle. This not only creates jobs, but the money collected from these sales is given back to the institutions to help pay for cafeterias, picnic areas and schooling for girls and boys,” said Vazquez.One example of that is a project in which Unilever with its Ala brand joined Una Vuela+ in Argentina in order to begin classes where cartridge belts and overalls are made using recycled canvases for the kids at school.
