Pablo Alvarado: The Man Who Organized Day Laborers Receives the International Matusak Courageous Leadership Award

The International Matusak Courageous Leadership Award was presented in the Republic of Panama at the Kellogg Fellows Leadership Alliance Latin American Forum last month, September 2014.

DENVER - The International Matusak Courageous Leadership Award was presented in the Republic of Panama at the Kellogg Fellows Leadership Alliance Latin American Forum last month, September 2014.

Pablo Alvarado, 47 (Pasadena, California) was the 2014 recipient of the Matusak Courageous Leadership Award. Pablo, an immigrant from El Salvador is the national coordinator/founder of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), currently a collaboration of about three dozen community-based day laborer organizations. Under his guidance, NDLON works with local governments to help establish worker centers providing job seekers honest places of safety and employment. While some day laborers are American-born, the vast majority are undocumented mainly from Mexico and Central American. They are subjected to discrimination, dangerous working conditions, low wages and unscrupulous employers. The National Day Laborer Organizing Network works to protect the human rights of these workers. “Our struggle is about being seen as human beings trying to earn our daily bread” said Alvarado. The Matusak Courageous Leadership Award recipients are given a cash award of $3,000 to be used to further their work.

The Matusak Courageous Leadership Award was started by Dr. Larraine Matusak, a former Leadership scholar at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and former director of the Kellogg National Fellowship Program. “If you look at what’s going on in the world, you see that there is very little true Leadership—both moral and courageous—that is what lead me to create the Courageous Leadership Award.” Dr. Matusak wants to recognize and reward those individuals who boldly take a risk to stand up for what is right and just; who work for the common good; who are willing to take an unpopular stand even if doing so may jeopardize their jobs or cause them to lose friends. They are willing to act authentically and speak up when silence would mean colluding with the problem, and they take actions that tangibly improve the human condition.

The Kellogg Fellows Leadership Alliance (KFLA) creates opportunities for 1,500 Kellogg Fellows from across the world to leave a significant legacy as a result of having participated in leadership development programs through the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Founded in 2002, KFLA’s mission is to identify and implement solutions to complex challenges by expanding the work and the impact of these Fellows in collaboration with local leaders, one another and other foundations’ leadership alumni groups. For more information on the Matusak Courageous Leadership Award contact KFLA at (303) 839-5352.