grantees » Elisabet Peteán Lovisa

Elisabet is a young Argentinian leader speaking out for her country’s aquatic ecosystems and the fishing families which depend on them. She is a member of PROTEGER Foundation, an Argentinian NGO designed to provide support for sustainable production and marketing of coastal cooperatives in the Santa Fe Province. “Mujeres del Litoral”, a women’s cooperative she integrates and helped create, brings together women from fishing families to produce premium fair-trade and sustainable fish delicacies. Elisabet has trained herself in order to train the women from rural fishing families in all aspects of the eco-friendly cooperative: from canning to hygiene, from accounting to marketing.

With the help of the JWH initiative, Elisabet deepened her specialist knowledge in order to better support the cooperative. She completed several courses related to Cooperative Management, Fair-trade Practices and Marketing for Social Entrepreneurs. These courses and workshops allowed her to be much more efficient in running the Cooperative and to be more knowledgeable about specific methodological and technical tools for her profession. Also, they made her aware of wider issues that she is now prepared for. Elisabet also studied Business English, and now feels confident in marketing with an international scope. Through presenting her project at a forum discussing the intersection of economic and social endeavors at the National University of General Sarmiento, Elisabet was also able to put into practice her communication skills as a representative of Mujeres del Litoral. These experiences brought Elisabet into close contact with academics from various institutions in her country, and she benefited greatly from such specific trainings, widening her network, and eventually she was invited to participate in a social economy project as part of a coalition with the National Univeristy of the Litoral. There, the “Mujeres del Litoral” Cooperative was taken to be a prime example of the social and economic marketing model in the country. Elisabet is proud of how her new knowledge and skills have positively influenced her work: “With my collaboration, the cooperative has achieved the certification to export its first shipment to Terra Madre international fair in Turin, the biggest global meeting of producers of healthy and natural food that rescues the cultural identity of their regions of origin, where fishers participate by special invitation.”