Stephanie Limage (left) was a Canadian delegate at the 2018 G20 YEA in Buenos Aires.

Limage Media Group founder Stephanie Limage traveled to Argentina to data-mine for opportunities and learn the landscape of Argentina back in 2017 while completing an artist’s residency and exhibiting some of her paintings and films. In September 2018 she returned to Buenos Aires as a G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance (YEA) delegate representing Canada with a handful of entrepreneurs selected from across the country through Futurpreneur Canada. Stephanie shares her experience and insights from the event. 


Limage Media Group offers a variety of media literacy programs as well as tools to help assist marginalized and underrepresented peoples groups and individuals in Canada, Haiti and now Argentina. Through the 2018 G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance Summit, Limage Media Group established further connections and formed new partnerships in Argentina with social enterprises and businesses that has allowed us to provide jobs as well as scholarships to emerging writers and journalists, producers, audio & visual artists. Futurpreneur and its local Argentine stakeholders hosted meet and greets for our Canadian delegation, and various tours and initiatives with international governmental departments and businesses that we found extremely helpful and well organized.

HECHO Partnership & New Limage Media Scholarship for HECHO Buenos Aires

One of our objectives we set out to accomplish during the G20 YEA was to locate those with a similar ethos to distribute knowledge and resources which will impact more lives in Argentina. We are proud to say we have been able to deliver as Limage Media Group has now established a partnership and scholarship for marginalized individuals in Buenos Aires through Argentine social enterprise HECHO.

I met with HECHO’s founder Patrica Merkin at HECHO HQ through a connection established by the Canadian Trade Commissionaires Service. With HECHO being firmly established in the inner city of Buenos Aires for over 18 years, they offer valuable insight through the partnership while mitigating risks for Limage Media Group’s new HECHO scholarship, which will be awarded once a year to an individual within the HECHO network. The aim of the scholarship is to provide a next step and support the street vendors in Buenos Aires who re-sell HECHO magazine to earn a living through the social enterprise and exit out of homelessness.

The Limage Media Group HECHO scholarship is coupled with a mobile online stills photography and editorial internship. Through the internship additional contract work can be provided for future sustainability.

 

Partnership with The Minister of Culture, Buenos Aires

Limage Media Group was also able to partner with the Minister of Culture in the province of Buenos Aires with the objective of the local government providing an umbrella over our community outreach operations within Buenos Aires. Through this partnership we can access resources, knowledge and the expertise of the local Government and its stakeholders to ensure there is no duplication of services while Limage Media Group comes alongside pre-existing community programs.

 

New Hire in Argentina Covering Women’s Issues

Meet Terri, Limage Media Group’s newest media team member. Terri’s focus is documenting and reporting on women’s issues and the women’s right’s movement in Latin America with a special focus on Argentina and inner city Buenos Aires.

I met Terri last year when I had an art exhibition in La Plata Buenos Aires. Terri saw a flyer in the streets and took the bus 2 hours to see the exhibition. I was touched that Terri had gotten a babysitter and came so far to see the exhibition. Given she was very low income it was not easy for her to get away for an evening.

Terri is a single mom who has an amazing survival story and is passionate about social justice. I kept in touch with Terri and observed her for a year prior to returning to Argentina to offer her a job. Terri had no idea I was coming down and this time with cameras to create jobs. It was all a lovely surprise and bit of a shock to Terri when I shared more about why I was in Buenos Aires and the G20 YEA. Terri joked for me to give her a job during the exchange and was pleasantly surprised when she found out that was exactly what I had been planning for several months. During Terri’s recent training in Buenos Aires I took Terri and hit the streets in San Telmo to do a few dry runs and get the template down for production.

Each month Terri will create and produce (with mentorship) a new episode for Ghetto News Argentina where you can learn more about the issues low income Latin American women are faced with. The episodes will show you how you can support the women’s rights movement in Latin America where the women are still considered second class citizens in many ways.

The content will go to our partner news rooms for the masses. We are working on Spanish and English to develop awareness for the struggle’s of these women to be heard in North America and give them a bigger platform.

The objective is to have Terri become the producer and in two months she will be able to take on an intern of her own and we can continue to grow. For now it is a mentorship investment on our side and integrating her into our BETA financial inclusion model with the consideration of inflation and other variables. We are sharing knowledge with local partners to find the best way around the inflation and ensure that the future can be sustainable. We are very grateful for the local government helping us to on-board Terri during the G20 YEA. We are so happy her and her little boy will now have a better life and that she can use her gifts to help other women.

 

Final thoughts

I am nothing but impressed with the support and infrastructure I have received while going through the process of incorporating my business in Argentina. Canada and Argentina have strong bilateral relations which is a valuable conduit to tap into.  I want to acknowledge the amazing efforts of the Government in Argentina to promote entrepreneurial migration, investment and trade through their local infrastructure programs such as “Invest BA”.

With the cooperation of Futurpreneur, Global Affairs Canada and The Trade Commissioners services I have had more support than I could have envisioned which has enabled me to scale my social enterprise into Argentina. The women from “Agencia Argentina de Inversiones y Comercio International” in Buenos Aires have been an amazing contribution as well, providing me with compliance and legal information regarding taxes and much more.

Futurpreneur Canada and my participation in the G20 YEA has been a critical fast track for me to move my vision forward and leverage resources while building new relationships on an international level with like-minded people.

I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to see not only the global and international landscape but local landscape in various Canadian cities. I really believe that if we can develop synergy between capitalism and social enterprise we can find creative ways to help marginalized peoples. One is not better than the other; we simply need to get to a place where it’s normal to connect the two so we can meet the complex needs we are faced with as a society both locally and internationally. To have a business today, or to build a business today, one must consider several variables for long term sustainability. I want to encourage businesses to be inclusive and explore new methods and partnerships with social enterprises.  I would suggest that a percentage of quarterly or annual profits must go toward making this world a better place for all and not just a select few.


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