Projeto Zumbi

Recently, some global issues have come up to my mind and forced me to think about:


What am I supposed to be useful for in this world?
Which impact will I generate?
Which opportunities can I take to develop myself and cause a positive impact on society?


As I was supposed to start my monograph for university, then I decided to start a project with sustainable entrepreneurship in a "favela" around Vitória Town called "Zumbi dos Palmares". Zumbi was a leader among African slaves who resisted to slavery in Brazil back to the 17th century. Zumbi is also a neighborhood with around 5 thounsands inhabitants nowadays.

Zumbi is a portrait of most of the "favelas" in Brazil: a lot of unemployement, children with poor education, bad conditions of sanitation, bad politics, garbage thrown everywhere...

For this project i grabbed Tania, from Peru, she's currently working for an NGO here in Vitória. We've been together to Zumbi. I also plan to engage other trainees who are here in Vitória (like Pedro from Portugal and the French Audrey who's about to arrive!)
In fact, what called me to this project was the intention to work with Eco Sanitation, something that was already going on in my university. I saw some videos talking about eco sanitation in Bangladesh and I'm really interested about "social Business" and "how to make business to the poor". Me and Tania, we've even created a blog about it:

http://ecosanitation.blogspot.com/

But when I saw Zumbi close to it, I noticed that sanitation is not their biggest problem that they have...they drain the sewage to a nearby river. It's not treated, but for them "the problem's solved!". I also think that they are too dependent on "external" help, so they must learn to generate funds for themselves. They also have a problem with garbage everywhere and children with poor education.Thinking of it entirely, we have: social + environmental + economical. That's all about sustainability! They need money to grow and they must learn how to get it, that means they must develop "entrepreneurship".

So the idea came: a "sustainable entrepreneurship" project can be held there!

How's it going to work?

Still don't know!


All I know is that they have potential people do develop and grow, they have urban garbage to be used in recycling projects, they have houses with no bathroom to be equipped with eco sanitation, they have close companies (the favela is surrounding "Carrefour", one of the biggest supermarket's trade in the world!), they have schools, the town has lots of NGO's with good case practices on generating funds...

Next Steps: getting to know them better and cooperating! Cooperation must be the "leadng word" when it comes to sustainable development.