By CAROLA MATARAZZO — Executive Director of the Bem Maior Movement
The difficulties faced by the population of this immense Brazil are countless. And the determination and willpower of the Brazilian people are equally immense. Often, all that's missing is an opportunity to achieve impressive results, such as what happened with a group of waste pickers in Rio Grande do Norte, the Association of Recyclable Materials Collectors of Caicó (Ascamarca), which in one year saw its project grow with great impact by 116%, going from 50 direct beneficiaries to 108.
Before understanding how this achievement was reached, we need to understand that philanthropy in Brazil is related to the concept of fundamental social rights, to which many citizens only have access thanks to the work of civil society organizations. The philanthropic sector increasingly meets demands in health, education, culture, professional training, social assistance, and other areas.
Based on this and the recognition of communities as a political subject seeking solutions to their problems, community-based organizations have been growing in the country. These initiatives seek to promote the sustainable development of a territory and its population: this is called local development.
You've probably heard of this concept, created by Muhammad Yunus, winner of the
Nobel Peace Prize. The idea is that in local development, residents are the protagonists in formulating plans to solve community vulnerabilities, using local resources and potential. It's not simply a reflection of a national development process in a given locality, but the promotion of social inclusion as a strategy to combat poverty. It's development from the inside out.
However, in order for community-based organizations to expand their impact and promote local development, they need to be fostered and financial resources are necessary. But more than that, it is necessary to empower local citizens so that they can participate effectively, from diagnosing the problem to building the proposal and its implementation. This interaction of knowledge requires a great capacity for articulation that not all of these organizations possess.
It was in this context that the Bem Maior Movement launched the Call for Proposals to Support Brazilian civil society organizations and community-based collectives in 2019 and 2020. In partnership with the Phi Institute, which was responsible for selecting the organizations and collectives and monitoring the support, we created a broad and constructive dialogue, assisting in structuring the projects so that they could generate even greater impact in the communities where they operate.
Going back to the history of the association in Rio Grande do Norte, it received support from the Bem Maior Movement and the Phi Institute in 2019 and initiated the creation of Recicla Seridó, a network connecting with other waste picker groups in the region. The initiative offers training and becomes a common platform for marketing waste to recycling industries and for the joint acquisition of supplies and work equipment.
In addition to doubling the number of beneficiaries, the project has established 10 new partnerships, nine of them with medium-sized companies that have started donating cardboard and plastics for selective collection, as well as the Seridó Public Solid Waste Consortium, for legal and technical assistance. A model ready to scale up and strengthen the protagonism of more Brazilians in building their own reality.