Brazil has been learning the value of collaboration for the success of any social initiative. The last two years have been exemplary in this sense. Our country has felt the impact of the pandemic like few others, counting 600,000 lives lost so far, not to mention the exponential growth in unemployment, poverty and hunger.
If we still do not plunge into social chaos, we owe it to the thousands of heroes and heroines of the third sector, who voluntarily extended a helping hand to the neediest parts of the population.
When the sources of income in the periphery disappeared, these professionals were there on the front line, providing food, personal hygiene items, masks, alcohol gel, school supplies and various other types of help. Our public authorities failed to support the poorest with health care and emergency income sufficient to guarantee a dignified life. Therefore, millions of Brazilians only managed to get through the worst moments of the pandemic thanks, above all, to the power of collaboration.
We must learn at least one lesson from the current crisis: without collective work, without unity around common goals, we will never build the fairer country that we all dream of. It is necessary to establish an alliance between the government, the private sector, civil society and the third sector to focus efforts on the real demands of those most in need. Collaborating, after all, also means including the poorest in decision-making processes, allowing them to define strategies, projects and public policies that will directly impact their lives.
This effort requires new social leadership, which, once again, depends on collaboration between different actors in the third sector to get it off the ground. That's why we celebrate the partnership between Gerando Falcões and Movimento Bem Maior , which completes a year of reaping promising results.
The objective of this union is to accelerate the training program for social leaders maintained by Gerando Falcões, through Falcons University, thereby expanding the impact of social development actions promoted in favelas. After a year of partnership, we exceeded expectations, training more than 100 leaders and opening, by the end of 2020 alone, 11 new units accelerated by Gerando Falcões, which doubled its size.
Gerando Falcões is currently present in more than 1,540 favelas and has more than 138 NGOs in its ecosystem. The goal for 2023 is to be present in more than 10 thousand favelas, open 100 accelerated units for its network and, with the help of Movimento Bem Maior, train more than 3,340 new social leaders.
These are ambitious goals, but viable for those who work as a team. This is because exchanging experiences makes our actions more efficient. No third sector entity has expertise in all types of projects. Therefore, it is necessary to share knowledge, especially that acquired in practice, so that entire solidarity networks can replicate successful initiatives.
This exchange also improves the governance of social organizations and their support networks, allowing for more concrete actions, with well-defined goals, transparency and measurement of results. Not to mention that good management attracts more support, including financial support, which is essential for any solidarity initiative.
Collaboration is what guarantees uniting people around goals and ideals. The pandemic has relegated us to a very serious economic and social crisis, but it has also given us clues, through countless examples of the transformative power of collective work, of how we can get out of this crisis. Building a more supportive country involves collaboration between different social actors, united around the commitment to extinguish poverty, reduce social inequality and create opportunities in Brazil's favelas.
Carola Matarazzo and Edu Lyra
This article was originally published on the Estadão website .
