Organizations from the entire country gather in São Paulo, during Projects Convening of the Brazil Fund, to debate “the future we wish to draft”. Photo: Natalia Paula/ Brazil Fund Collection
Thinking of possible futures. Analyzing how each organization can impact reality and contribute to the construction of a more just country, through the defense of human rights. That’s the perspective with which representatives from 140 projects supported by the Brazil Human Rights Fund met in another Projects Convening, in São Paulo, immersed in reflections and exchanges about the impact of their acting.
Ana Valéria Araújo, executive director of the Brazil Fund, speaks to those present during the opening of the Projects Convening. Photo: Natalia Paula/Brazil Fund Collection
Between the 13th and 14th, 20th and 21st of March, the foundation opened space for dialogues and connections, in a gathering that has already become a tradition among the supported organizations.
The action, promoted annually, aims to create a space of mutual learning, allowing the participants to share challenges, achievements and good practices, beyond strengthening the collaboration between territories that face similar challenges.
For the Brazil Fund, this is also an opportunity to interact further with those who defend human rights daily in the country, and to enhance institutional action strategies.
“This gathering helps us ensure that the support we offer is even more effective, because we can hear directly from those who are enacting the projects and, therefore, adjust our strategies and actions to support them in the best possible way”, explained Ana Valéria Araújo, executive director of the Brazil Fund. “The gathering also facilitates the creation of collaboration networks between the organizations, something that potentializes the impact of each action”.
In order to ensure more comfort and facilitate the dialogue between the participants, the event was distributed among two weeks, assembling organizations supported by six calls for proposal. During the first week the foundation received representatives from projects supported by the following calls for proposal: Tackling Racism from the Basis, Popular Advocacy in Public Security, A Way Out 2024: Civic Rights for People Released from the Prison System.
In the second week, it was the time for organizations from the calls for proposal: Promotion and Defense of Human Rights in the Rio Doce Basin, General 2024 Call for Proposal Voices for Rights and Justice: Strengthening Civil Society’s Autonomy and Agency, and the Raízes call for proposal: Indigenous Peoples Fighting for Climate Justice.
Voices for the Future: Freedom, Justice and Equality
In conversation, the groups supported by the Brazil Fund spoke of challenges and described how they work to build a better future. Photo: Natalia Paula/Brazil Fund Collection
During the first meeting, the debate about the future that organizations work to build was marked by themes such as resistance, freedom, inclusivity and the end of prisons.
Each speech brought forward a unique perspective on the realities and challenges faced by the communities, but they all converged towards the same cause: the creation of a more just and inclusive future for all, with freedom and equality.
Lilian Pires of the Baobá Initiative Collective from São Paulo said that in the near future she expects racism and its consequences to no longer be a part of her routine. “What we expect in the future is to be able to leave home without fearing the violences and oppressions that we face. I hope we can get together to smile, to talk of achievements and no longer of pains”.
Bárbara Freitas of the Maria Felipa People’s Advisory Service from Belo Horizonte/MG, who works for integral justice for women, hopes the right to exist and to start over becomes a reality. “The future I hope for is a world without prisons, in which we are all free”, she said, emphasizing the importance of a future without the prison system as a tool for exclusion and oppression.
In recent years, the rates of violence against black youth in Brazil have bust wide open what many already felt on their own skin: the right to live is not guaranteed for all in the same way. According to the Violence Atlas, black youths are over 75% of homicide victims in the country, a statistic that reveals not only a pattern, but a project of exclusion.
In cities such as Cabo de Santo Agostinho/PE, this scenario becomes worse. That’s why the Cabo Youth Forum – FOJUCA works to flip the tables, putting black youth in the center of creation for public policies. “Two years ago, we saw that Cabo de Santo Agostinho was considered the municipality where the black youth was the most vulnerable in all Brazil. From that, we created the movement to set the rights for young people to live. We want tomorrow to be a reference in the creation of public policy for the youth”, said during the gathering Glaubberty Rusman, from FOJUCA.
Mãe Nonata de Oxum brought forward, in her speech, a deep observation on the fight against religious racism and the importance of resistance: “The human right to life is primordial. Even within our struggles, we can’t lose our happiness, our joy in living our resistance and insisting on changing that history. To speak of the future is to speak of hope. We need to have hope in order to continue staying strong”, concluded the religious leader, who represents the Cultural Folkloric Religious Beneficent Institute Nossa Senhora da Vitória, from São Luís/MA.
For so many woes and daily struggles, Edna Flores, from the Água Morena Association for Damage Reduction, from Campo Grande/MS, saw in the projects gathering a moment of respite and comfort. “I want, before anything, to thank the Brazil Fund, because what we are living here is succor. This moment is really important for all of us. We focus on caring and strengthening people deprived of freedom, a heavy labor. The near future starts here, with this opportunity that the Fund has given us for network strengthening and exchange of experiences”.
By the end of the conversation, in face of so many important reflections, Mafoane Odara, president of the Brazil Fund’s Board of Directors, reinforced the essential need for the fight, which is to take care of those who take care. “Activism may be exhausting, therefore care must be a priority in resistance strategies. We need to build support networks and ensure the fight for human rights doesn’t compromise the life of those in the frontlines, as well as the dignity and well-being of those who conduct that process. It is fundamental to put hope in movement and keep believing in the importance of what we do. But still strengthening in network, as we do here today.”
Paths toward a possible future: Reflexions and challenges
In the second week of the Projects Convening, the debates on the paths toward the future that organizations work to build were held in separate rooms, with the groups divided according to the topics of acting. The dialogues were conducted by members of the Brazil Fund’s Board of Directors.
Veriano Terto, who is also the president of the Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association, shared the history of the fight for the rights of people who live with HIV/AIDS, also covering the current challenges faced by said movement and so many others that defend those rights.
He incentivized the organizations to reflect on the progress of the fight for fundamental rights and emphasized that, “though the fights are already ongoing, it is essential that our groups and organizations keep moving in search of the safekeeping of those rights”. To him, it is crucial that the histories of social movements are not erased. “It is necessary to preserve history, so the purpose of a better future keeps on”.
In the end, Terto claimed that human rights are, and should be, an essential political project so we can face the dilemmas of current life and keep on building a possible future, even in the face of adversities.
Gersem Baniwa, indigenous anthropologist and professor, conducted the conversation with indigenous groups. In a country where indigenous peoples face constant threats to their territory and culture, the professor highlighted how much nature has been teaching humanity to be resistance. “The final say doesn’t belong to humans, but to nature. We depend on it, it is the substance, it is the one who has the power and has survived every kind of violence”, said the professor.
With alarming data on deforestation and violence against indigenous peoples, such as the 137% increase to assassinations of indigenous leaders in 2023, Gersem Baniwa highlighted that the fight for the preservation of nature and for indigenous rights has never been so urgent. “It’s not enough to think, plan and project, building is necessary. Handcrafting the future we desire. To protect ourselves we need to build alliances, as we have done to earn historical rights”.
Mafoane Odara, master in Psychology by the University of São Paulo broached the need to rethink communication strategies in order to ensure that human rights are understood as a concern of all. “We need to understand that our collective communication is stronger. We are here, with the world happening around us: conflicts, fights. Despite the challenges, reality isn’t the same as before. Many of us have died so we could be here today, thinking of the future. We have advanced and will move forward”, she reflected.
She emphasized the need to reach those who, initially, prove indifferent or reluctant to understand the fight for rights. “We can’t renounce on that which is non-negotiable, that is, our cause, our agenda, and the search for a dignified life. So, we need to know how to reach those who don’t want to hear us, bringing forward common points of collective life, of that which connects us so that people understand we defend the good of all”.
Veriano Terto, Gersem Baniwa and Mafoane Odara, members of the Brazil Fund’s Board of Directors during debates in the Brazil Fund’s Projects Convening. Photo: Natalia Paula/Brazil Fund Collection
Fernanda Ribeiro Almeida, representative of the National Romani Agency of Belo Horizonte/MG, participated for the first time in the Projects Convening and highlighted the event’s relevance to strengthen those who are at the forefront every day, defending human rights. “Our fight isn’t over isolated agendas. We fight for the good of all humanity because, in transforming the world, the improvement will be for all, not just for a specific group. I thank the Brazil Fund for providing an essential gathering to propel us even more through these exchanges”, she claimed.
Workshops for the sustainability and future of actions
Fundraising Workshop, part of the programming for the Brazil Fund’s Projects Meeting. Photo: Natalia Paulo/Brazil Fund Collection
The training workshops closed the event’s programming, offering practical tools and knowledges to improve the organizations’ performance in the diverse areas of social acting. The activities also contribute to the strengthening of technical and management capacities of institutions.
During the event, all organizations participated in workshops focused in fundraising, elaboration of projects for registering in calls for proposal, strategic communication for the defense of rights, and popular advocacy.
Ednalva Rita coming from the Quilombo Caiana de Crioulos, in Alagoa Grande, 130 km from the capital of Paraíba, highlighted the transformation this experience brought her and her community, who faces great challenges.
“Rita, from the Quilombo, who struggles to reach the state capital, never imagined she’d one day be here, in São Paulo, with so many potent people. From everything I’ve heard here, everything I’ve lived through these days, I can say I’ll come back to my territory a different person, even more willing, filled with ideas to put in practice on how to elaborate my project and communicate to the world what we do in the territory”, commemorated the quilombola.
“To the Brazil Fund, I can only thank you for giving us the hope of knowing we’re not alone and can continue fighting strong for a better life for our people”.
