2016 was a hard year, marked by crises and takedowns of human rights public policies and it reaches its end with plenty of answered questions. We must not ignore that the national and international situations are threatening and this is scary.
For Brazil Fund, the year required a lot of work, assessment and planning. But we also celebrated our tenth anniversary. The foundation consolidated a decade of work showing solid capacity to support human rights organizations, which is now more critical than ever. We are confident that our work has made a difference so far and it will be even more relevant in the coming years to support small and medium civil society groups in their actions of resistance.
In this last newsletter of 2016, it is not an easy task to speak about this scenario of setbacks while at the same time reflect the joy of completing a decade of operations. However, it is important to celebrate the fact that we are fierce and ready for the future, no matter how challenging it might be.
It is essential to support all those who are under threat in the field; we need to be next to the ones who are fighting and enable them to keep on resisting; and we also need to ensure the attainment of rights, so that new advances are possible.
We finalized 2016 planning our work for 2017. A beautiful concert presented by Teresa Cristina marked the beginning of the selection process regarding the projects to be supported by two calls for proposals.
Moreover, as a symbolic milestone, Brazil Fund received honorable mention in the 13th edition of the Innovare Award, the most important Justice award in Brazil.
Having our work acknowledged motivates us to move forward ensuring the prominence of civil society in the fight for rights.
We wish you all a good 2017!
