2020 Benefitting Society Winner: Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola - Peru

Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola - USIL Sustainable Living Lab in Occopata, a community in Cusco at 4,000 masl 

Occopata is an Andean community 40 minutes from the city of Cusco with a population of 801 people who maintain their ancestral customs. Here, history coexists with modernity. Previously, the community depended almost entirely on potato farming, which kept it extremely vulnerable to weather and market conditions.  

This inspired the creation of the USIL Sustainable Living Lab in Occopata, which entails integrated work by all the university’s academic programs, articulating efforts by about 23 private, public, social service and academic institutions to generate comprehensive solutions for the rural community’s sustainable development.  

The goal of the program is to significantly reduce poverty in Occopata by 2022, materialised in improvement in 4 indicators measured in 2018:

(i) 68% multidimensional poverty;

(ii) 65% monetary poverty;

(iii) 64% anemia in children under 3 years of age;

(iv) 42% chronic malnutrition in children under 5 years of age.

At the same time, we seek to consolidate a university social service model that is replicable and scalable for other organizations in communities in a vulnerable situation. 

Top three learnings: 

1. We show respect and willingness to listen and work together; we keep our promises and share achievements. This has enabled us to build trust and be considered in the dynamics of the community for the implementation of the project.  
2. We shared our plans and expectations with the other actors involved, which enabled us to streamline processes, join efforts and find partners for the present and future.  
3. We gather experiences from our degree programs, recognising their contribution to university social responsibility. With this information, we outline potential interventions for the benefit of Occopata, projecting potential returns in aspects such as talent attraction and retention.