As the son of a Chilean mother, Enrique Roig grew up with the first-hand experience of the Pinochet dictatorship, which sparked an interest in international relations and politics at a young age. That passion subsequently led him to work in complex foreign policy and development initiatives in 23 countries, from Latin America and the Caribbean, to Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Caucuses region, receiving four USAID awards in outstanding leadership for his work in addressing insecurity and violence in Central America. Today, he manages a global practice area on citizen security at Creative Associates, with a focus on youth violence prevention and countering violence extremism.
Enrique was born in San Francisco, California. His mother had been a librarian at the Biblioteca Nacional de Chile and his father a Catalan merchant marine traveling for the Gran Colombiana shipping line, the son of a soldier who lost his eyesight during the Spanish Civil War. His parents met in San Francisco, were married a year later, settled in the city, and soon had Enrique. Unfortunately, his father passed away when he was eight years old, and his mother considered moving back to Chile, but the Pinochet dictatorship dissuaded her from doing so.
Enrique attended Westmont College in Santa Barbara, where he pursued a political science degree. During his last semester, he did a program in Washington, DC, where he interned at the Embassy of Ecuador. “From that moment, I was hooked on politics,” he told IQLatino. In DC he met his future wife, Julia, with whom he would subsequently move around to Barcelona, Washington state, and back to DC as she finished her studies. Back in DC, Enrique pursued an MA in International Relations at American University as his wife attended the George Washington Law School. They were eventually married, and now have two kids.
His first job was at the company in which he currently remains, Creative Associates, a major USAID contractor focused on security and violence prevention. From 1999-2001 he worked for Mercy Corps, a humanitarian aid organization, where he supported programs in the aftermath of the Balkans conflict and helped start a new program in the Republic of Georgia. From 2001-2004, he worked and lived in Colombia as a USAID contractor at the outset of Plan Colombia. He then served as director of a USAID-funded civil society advocacy program in Serbia for two years, where he supported Serbian efforts to join the European Union and promote democratic elections. From 2010-2015, Enrique served as the Coordinator at USAID for the Central America Regional Security Initiative to address the rise in insecurity and violence in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. During the last ten years, USAID’s violence prevention programs, fairly nascent upon Enrique’s arrival, has become significantly more sophisticated in the region.
In 2001, during his work in Colombia, Enrique started working on violence prevention, where he helped establish a program to protect human rights workers and set up an Early Warning System to alert communities about potential conflict flashpoints. In 2005, during his work in Central America, he began working on gang prevention issues. While the State Department at the time mostly supported law enforcement efforts and anti-gang legislation, Enrique and his team “recommended that USAID invest more on the soft side: how to work with at risk youth to keep them from getting involved in violence and the gangs. That has become the basis of much of USAID’s violence prevention work in LAC today, particularly in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean,” he explained. Some of his recommendations included working with at-risk youth and their families as well as policing, balancing law enforcement with community programs to provide exit strategies so youth can leave gangs. He has also spent significant time promoting the idea of working with former gang members in order to target the core offender group, which received resistance from the U.S. government. In Central and South America as well as in North Africa, he has worked to prevent youth violence and counter violent extremism.
This year, Enrique was commissioned to write the section on recommendations for violence prevention efforts in Central America as part of the Senate Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission report, to be released in November. “I am hopeful that in a Biden administration these recommendations will serve to strengthen the ongoing efforts and ensure resources go towards evidence-based violence prevention efforts to reduce homicides and other violence crimes,” he said. “The United States has an important role to play in foreign policy by supporting political and economic development in partner countries to prevent conflict and violence. It’s a partnership; we can’t do anything alone because it won’t be sustainable. We need to understand the local context and culture. There is a lot of ambiguity and no quick fixes. We just need to keep working to develop actionable, evidence-informed programs,” he added. Read more about Enrique’s initiatives and recommendations in his IQLatino op-ed here.
Enrique provided some valuable advice to fellow Latinos who would like to pursue a similar career path in the United States:
- Find mentors in your field, look for internships that build your CV.
- Make sure to have diverse pool of people you follow, listen to and read to have a broad perspective on issues.
- Don’t feel you have to be a specialist in one thing when you’re starting out; learn about as many different country contexts and related issues.
- Work/intern/volunteer overseas to experience life outside the US.
- Hone your language skills. Learn another language really well. It’ll serve as the basis for learning others later in life.
- Writing skills are a must, including non-academic writing, start a blog. Get as much experience writing and stating your case succinctly and persuasively.
- Don’t be afraid to take chances and fail. That’s the only way we grow and get better. To quote one of my favorite painters Salvador Dali, “Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.” This resonates with me as I’ve always had a bit of imposter syndrome living and working in DC. I grew up a first generation Latino in California where I felt the constant pressure of having to prove myself and always feeling that I had to do more. With age you start to realize that all we can do is give your best effort and usually good things happen when you have a passion for your work and life.
- My other motto is work hard and be nice to people – to quote singer Michael Franti, he added.