Innovators
cent of the population, suffer disproportionate rates of poverty and discrimination. “There’s no other place
in South America that has the same
levels of offensive, aggressive racism
as Peru,” says Carrillo. “The other day I
left my house...and counted the number of insults I received in 20 minutes: 12. People say these things and
they don’t run away, because they
feel they’re in the right.”
A communications graduate of the
Universidad Nacional de San Marcos in Lima, Carrillo produced a radio program dedicated to women’s
rights, and served as a coordinator
of the Peruvian youth delegation
to the 2001 United Nations’ World
Conference against Racism held in
Durban, South Africa, before founding LUNDU with the help of friends
and family in 2001.
Overlooked no more:
LUNDU operates in two centers,
one in Callao (in the department
of Lima) and one in El Carmen ( 95
miles southeast of Lima in Ica). The
name refers to a traditional African dance and in Kikongo, an An-golan dialect, means “successor.”
The LUNDU centers serve as after-school spaces for young people—
especially young women—to get together, speak freely about concerns
and use art as an outlet for expressing their frustrations over the rac-
CiviC innovator
Monica Carrillo
Peru
ism of mainstream Peruvian society.
to increase awareness of Afro- In addition to weekly workshops for
Peruvian culture.
Carrillo performs and organizes
the organization’s 35 participants,
the spaces remain open throughout the week for help with creative
projects and homework.
Monica Carrillo is a pub- with Afro-Peruvian youth has also Carrillo and a team of four travel
lished poet, the leader turned her into an internationally every Saturday to El Carmen to orga-of a band and can boast recognized advocate for some of her nize workshops that focus primarily
having produced her country’s most neglected and long- on sexual education. The effort is a
own radio show. Any suffering citizens. response to the spike in incidences
of these activities would have es- Carrillo is the founding director of of HIV/AIDS resulting from the area’s
tablished the 29-year-old Lima res- LUNDU, a Lima-based human rights growingsextourismindustry. In2006,
ident as a pace-setter for a vibrant organization that works to improve a documentary produced by MTV
new generation of regional artists conditions for Afro-Peruvians who, Europa and filmed by Carrillo about
and activists. But Carrillo’s work representing between 7 and 10 per- LUNDU’s work in El Carmen, was
