During the past ten years Lorena Escobar-Pérez has been involved in projects that targeted the development of rural communities in the Southern Highlands of Ecuador, South-America.  These projects have concentrated on raising entrepreneurial interests on the members of such communities, and also, they have focused on generating an understanding of what should be really expected after an entrepreneurial cycle.  Which is not a monetary reward, but their own well-being.

The search of their well-being has to adjust to the circumstances, the knowledge, and the background of the communities involved.   And, in order to achieve this goal, their economical or commercial transactions needed to be reinforced with actions of sensitivity, acknowledgement, respect, alliance and the integration of the parties engaged in business.

The most recent project that she had, and still works with, consists on a network of rural agricultural producers and urban consumers spread in 4 provinces, 12 towns, and it involves around a thousand families.  This network has served as a model in the elaboration of the legal frame of the new laws of “Alimentary Sovereignty,”  “ the democratization of production assets,” “ Gender Equity” and “Solidary Economy” carried by the Ecuadorian Constitutional Assembly in the years 2008 and beginning of 2009.

Despite their achievements, Lorena still believe that is necessary to enrich her understanding of the economy with the participation of important elements such as gender, inter-culture and the environment, which cannot stand alone or separated from each other.