Agua Ecosan Perú
Agua Ecosan Perú is a sanitation organization based in Lima that works to benefit people in peri-urban and rural communities with ecological sanitation systems.
What we should know about you
Questions answered by Juan Carlos Calizaya Luna, General Manager
1. What is your biggest success as an entrepreneur?
My greatest achievement or success as a social entrepreneur was to develop a public policy proposal to help millions of people in the country who have a dry ecological toilet – after working since 1997 when this issue only started to become understood in Peru. Since 2013, the state has invested millions of soles in these systems. There are courses to encourage professionals to practice ecological sanitation. This is an achievement of a process in which other institutions became involved, too, building strength and knowledge together while breaking down prejudices.
2. What drives you personally to keep your social business running?
I am driven by more than the economic aspect of my work, which is actually little because it is not a business with a high demand. What really drives me is the contribution to water management, sanitation, and environmental improvements in the future. I believe that with initiatives such as Agua Ecosan Perú promoting this, we will achieve this in our society and that those in power focus not only on poverty but also on construction and building processes in general.
3. Did you always want to become a social entrepreneur?
I have been working in NGOs for more than 30 years. The social aspect and my relationship to the needs of the people was always present. Nevertheless, the work I have done contributed only little to the satisfaction of existing needs. As a social entrepreneur, I discovered that if a social business proposal or idea has the potential and the capacity to be accepted in the market, it can be replicated and scaled up more quickly and with greater sustainability than a typical social project, which is often biased towards welfare.
Additional achievements
Awards
- Second place in the VI ECOEFFICIENCY Award 2002, organized by COCA-COLA and the Catholic University Group, proposal presented by CENCA in October 2002
Affiliations
- ASHOKA Fellow since October 2004
- AVINA Leader since July 2005
- Nominated for the 2011 abc* award by the abc* foundation for work as a social entrepreneur in Latin America