Latin Lawyer is pleased to announce the winner of this year’s Latin Lawyer Pro Bono Project of the Year Award: Aguilar Castillo Love (Costa Rica) for its work on the Talamanca project, which has helped integrate members of local indigenous communities into Costa Rica’s formal economy.
Aguilar Castillo Love’s San José office worked with local NGO Fundación Ciudadanía Activa for the project, while it also worked with Costa Rica’s Ministry of Labour and national employment programme PRONAE. The Talamanca initiative provides secure employment opportunities for local indigenous people from the territories of Bribri and Cabécar, as well as helping them to gain funding to launch their farming businesses.
The innovative project strives to integrate Costa Rican natives from disadvantaged communities into the formal economy using an agribusiness and tourism development plan, which is focused on the local canton of Talamanca. Located in the province of Limón, on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, Talamanca has one of the largest indigenous populations in the country, as well as being one of the most diverse. It is home to a third of Costa Rica’s entire indigenous population.
Despite having some of the richest biodiversity in the country, Talamanca’s population suffers high levels of poverty and ranks very low on the socio-economic scale. Aguilar Castillo Love’s winning pro bono project sought to address that, creating entrepreneurship associations through which local indigenous...
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