Daniel Cerezo, social transformer: “Charity starts by seeing what another person lacks, and that creates a huge gap that breaks trust”

For Daniel Cerezo, the most important lesson in inclusion began with a music teacher who learned the songs he heard in his neighborhood so he could play them.

Cerezo grew up in Bajo Boulogne amid material hardship and lost his father when he was a young child. His life changed when he entered a community cultural center. There, music opened the door to emotional tools that changed how he understood and moved through the world.

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That nine-year-old Daniel found a space where he could express himself and be heard. I think Lili’s act of love was the greatest of all: she came to teach me Piazzolla and Beethoven, but she learned songs by La Bomba Tucumana, Mario Luis and Damas Gratis so I could play what I listened to in the neighborhood. She gave herself the chance to learn something new, and she gave me the chance to believe that I was capable.

“That nine-year-old Daniel found a space where he could express himself and be heard,” Cerezo recalls. He remembers his music teacher, Lili, teaching him Piazzolla and Beethoven while also learning songs by La Bomba Tucumana, Mario Luis and Damas Gratis. “She gave herself the chance to learn something new, and she gave me the chance to believe that I was capable.”

That experience shaped his view of charity. “Charity starts by seeing what another person lacks, from the superiority of ‘poor thing, they don’t have anything, we have to give them something,’ and that creates a huge gap that breaks trust,” he says. Cerezo believes “giving” should become “sharing,” because giving moves from the top down while sharing happens between equals.

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Charity starts by seeing what another person lacks, from the superiority of ‘poor thing, they don’t have anything, we have to give them something,’ and that creates a huge gap that breaks trust. That is why we have to replace giving with sharing.

Cerezo later became a social transformation leader and Argentina’s first “happiness and culture manager” at alpargata company Páez. From 2010 to 2015, he worked on recognizing employees, strengthening belonging and creating real opportunities at work. The initiatives included unifying company dining rooms, learning employees’ names and developing organizational culture.

He later founded CreerHacer, a social enterprise designed to build two-way connections between companies and vulnerable neighborhoods. It provides services to businesses, governments and civil organizations, using those contracts to finance other programs. Its work includes workshops in emotional intelligence, leadership and resilience.

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