Leadership Award
EVS WINS MAJOR LEADERSHIP AWARD
Ford Foundation Honors Arturo Salcedo and Eduardo López
EVS founders Arturo Salcedo and Eduardo López were presented with the prestigious Leadership for a Changing World Award by Ford Foundation President Susan V. Berresford at a ceremony held in New York City on the evening of Tuesday, October 1, 2002. Nearly 1,500 organizations nationwide were nominated for the honor, which is widely recognized as one of the most important leadership awards for community-based organizations in the United States.
After a year-long selection process, a total of twenty individuals and social service agencies were singled out by the Ford Foundation for tackling tough social problems on behalf of vulnerable populations in their communities. Each group will receive $130,000 to advance their work over the next two years, and will participate in a major research study on leadership being conducted by the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at New York University.
Salcedo and López were selected for their groundbreaking work in Latino public education, and for their innovative use of commercial Spanish-language television as an effective vehicle for community empowerment.
“For nearly 17 years, these visionary pioneers have fought with great tenacity to provide immigrant Latino families living in the Washington metropolitan area with information on critical health, education, legal and social service issues utilizing the most important channel of communication for our community – Spanish-language television,” said Cecilia Alvear, former President of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, in the letter that nominated Salcedo and López for the LCW Award. “Their single-minded struggle resulted in the creation of Línea Directa, the country’s longest-running Spanish-language series dedicated to public education.”
The award-winning program, which has been on the air for nearly 13 years, is produced in the studios of NBC4 in Washington, D.C. thanks to a public service partnership that is unique in the nation. The series is then broadcast to thousands of Latino households each Sunday evening by the Spanish-language television station, Telemundo 64.
“This award is very meaningful to us,” said EVS Executive Director and Línea Directa Host Arturo Salcedo. “As immigrants, both Eduardo López and I share a deep sense of commitment to helping Latino families improve their lives here in the United States. This has been our mission for many years. Our hope now is that this award will create national opportunities for EVS that will allow us to reach more Latino households, and produce effective public education television campaigns for many more communities across the country.”
For information on the Ford Foundation’s Leadership for a Changing World program, visit www.leadershipforchange.org.
