Atlas Network is pleased to announce this year’s Latin American Freedom Awards, which have been awarded annually for the past decade. The awards recognize think tanks for their accomplishments during the past year in the following five categories: Ethics and Values; Free Market Solutions to Poverty; Student Outreach; Social Entrepreneurship; and New Media. Each recipient is granted a $2,000 prize.
The Latin American Freedom Awards were established in 2005, named after free-market and classical liberal thinkers who had great influence throughout the region. Each prize category below outlines some of the accomplishments of the winning organizations, and we also encourage you to visit their individual group profiles to learn more about their significant work and impact.
Francisco de Vitoria Award for Ethics and Values
The Francisco de Vitoria Award for Ethics and Values honors think tanks in Latin America that draw attention to human rights and to the ethics and values that sustain free societies. The 2014 award was presented to Centro de Divulgacion del Conocimiento Economico para la Libertad (CEDICE) in Venezuela for its relentless fight to preserve free enterprise and values of individual responsibility and self-reliance in a country whose people live every day under threat of having their most basic freedoms curtailed.
Miguel Kast Award for Free-Market Solutions to Poverty
The Miguel Kast Award for Free-Market Solutions to Poverty recognizes Latin American think tanks that prevent future poverty by creating opportunities for wealth creation. The 2014 award was presented to Libertad y Progreso in Argentina for its institutional quality index, which ranks countries around the world by their institutional strength. The field of development economics regards institutions as one of the most important factors of a country’s success and the basis for implementing policy reforms that enable more people to emerge from poverty.
Francisco Marroquín Award for Student Outreach
The Francisco Marroquín Award for Student Outreach is named after the first Bishop of Central America and given to the think tank that has done the most innovative work in student outreach. The 2014 award was presented to Instituto de Estudos Empresariais (IEE) in Brazil for its annual Fórum da Liberdade. This conference attracts more than 5,000 participants from all around the world, including many Brazilian students. It also features high-quality speakers and garners extensive media coverage.
Alberto Marten Prize for Social Entrepreneurship
The 2014 Alberto Marten Prize was presented to Fundación Jaime Guzmán for its Youth to the Service of Chile project. Through this program, the foundation trains youth from all around the country in the principles of free enterprise. It targets students who might enter local office or the national government, and first provides them with a solid foundation of economic knowledge. This way, the students can play a first-hand role in implementing the principles they learned and improving the government from the bottom up.
Award for Innovative New Media
The 2014 Innovative New Media Award was presented to the Instituto Ludwig von Mises Brasil for its exceptional social media outreach. The institute currently has more than 110,000 Facebook likes and almost 10,000 followers on Twitter. It has used these outlets to interact with its community, market its publications, and spread its ideas through op-eds. Given its reach we believe Mises Institute in Brazil is driving an influential discussion among its followers.
