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* REPORT : 95

INTERAÇÃO ACTIVITIES - 2006

 This year was marked by an important movement related to expand the savings schemes to other cities and states in Brazil as well as make the NGO Interação and the savings schemes network visible in order to open up possibilities for new partnerships, leverage of funding, strengthening and expansion of savings in the country.

I – Savings schemes

At the beginning of the year the savings network counted on:

  • 10 groups with approximately 100 members and R$ 1.274,75 (US$ 550) in two cities, Osasco and Várzea Paulista.

 By the end of 2006 we had about:

  • 20 groups with approximately 350 members and R$ 12.000,00 (US$ 5.450) in five cities: Osasco, Várzea Paulista, São Paulo, Sorocaba and Santos.

This performance shows the growing of:

  • 100% in number of groups
  • 250% in number of members
  • 890% in amount saved
  • expansion to 4 new cities

Beyond that visits were made and meetings with eventual partners held in order to promote for 2007 the expansion of the savings groups to the following states: Bahia, Alagoas, Goiás, Rio de Janeiro and Ceará. In those 3 states Interação team made contacts to government representatives, social movements and possible private partners.

In Fortaleza, Ceará we reestablished contact with the NGO Ceará Periferia founded years ago in partnership with the South African Federation, the intention for 2007 is to integrate those “lost” savings schemes to the new network in São Paulo and expand the other methodologies for poor settlements in partnership with city and state government.

 

II – Enumerations

This year the enumerations and socio-economic surveys were concluded for 4 communities:

  • Vila Real – Várzea Paulista
  • Jardim Aliança – Osasco
  • Portal Campo – Osasco
  • Portal Meinc – Osasco

For all these areas community groups completed surveys with several information about the families (size, income, expenses, work relations, etc) and households (access to services and infra-structure, quality of the houses) for a range of approximately 4.500 families. The data collected was handed to the municipal governments in order to continue with regularization and urbanization processes.

The fact that Brazilian municipalities accept data collected by the communities themselves as official information is totally new and can be considered as a very important achievement by the savings network.

 

III – Exchanges

With support from SDI three exchanges were made four exchanges:

  • From Brazil to South Africa and Zimbabwe in January (one NGO and one community member).
  • From Brazil to South Africa for the SDI International Conference in Cape Town in May (one NGO and two community members).
  • From South Africa to Brazil for the Housing Conference in Santo André and field visits to Osasco and Várzea Paulista (two NGO and two Federation members).
  • From Brazil to South Africa, Durban. Preparations of the MOU between Osasco and Durban, meetings with the municipality and several community visits for experience and information exchange among city officials, NGO and community members. The Brazilian delegation counted with 3 representatives of Osasco and Várzea Paulista, 3 community members from those cities and one NGO member.

Within Brazil the following exchanges were made, mainly focused on expanding savings schemes and build new partnerships:

  • From Várzea Paulista and Osasco to Sorocaba (middle size city about 100 km from São Paulo City).
  • From Sorocaba to Várzea Paulista.
  • From Santos (harbor city about 70 km from São Paulo) to Várzea Paulista.
  • From Osasco to São Paulo (two communities in São Paulo and one important nation wide social movement, MDF).
  • Within Osasco communities.

IV – Conferences and meetings

This year Interação and representatives of the Brazilian savings network were present at three important international conferences in Brazil and South Africa, two savers meetings and several treasurers meetings.

National and International Conferences:

  • SDI International Conference, May, Cape Town. The Brazilian delegation was composed of two representatives of the Federal Government, two community members from Osasco and Várzea Paulista and one NGO member. The Brazilians held presentations about government, NGO and community actions, performance of the savings schemes and housing projects.
  • “Housing Policies: constraints and possibilities of municipal action”, May, Santo André, Brazil. In this conference Patrick Magebula made a presentation of the Federation work in Durban and signed a MOU with Santo André Municipality.
  • “Empowerment of social organizations and alternatives for overcome poverty”. This conference was organized by Interação with support of Norway Government, the Comission for Legal Empowerment of the Poor (United Nations) and the Brazilian Office of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Bellow the program of the conference:

Date: December 11 and 12th 2006

Panel 1
Social Movements and relations with public sector for the implementation of the Statue of the Cities rights

  • Partnership for politics and programs
  • Recognition and legitimating social movements

 

Panel 2
Land Access

  • Fundiary regulation in urban areas – Statue of the Cities
  • Land Access Mechanism for habitation
  • Rural Settlement

Panel 3
Mechanisms for access to justice

  • Public prosecutor
  • Proposal actions from civil society
  • Probono lawyers

Panel 4
Social Movements Sustainability

  • Public Sector support to strengthen and facilitate organized communities’ actions.
  • Financing
  • Technical-institutional capacity

Panel 5
Housing and Sustainability

Topic 1

  • Financial management and community savings

Video Presentation: Durban, South Africa

Topic 2

  • Income generation
  • Challenges for small business
  • Community actions and the world of work

Participants:

  • Grass roots Movements: urban and rural
  • NGO’s
  • Government
  • Professionals, researchers and students

This conference opened up many possibilities for expansion of the savings network and partnerships with cities and social organizations interested on moving from their traditional organization tools and incorporate savings and collective information to their structures. One of the most important messages of the conference was that the old approach of the housing movements in Brazil must be urgently improved in order to guarantee sustainability, attract partnerships and improve the outcomes, savings could be an interesting for those who can identify this opportunity.

All panels were mixed with representatives of social movements, NGO’s and government and the public each day of the conference had more than 400 participants. The conference also opened up very important channels by the Brazilian Media, the field visit in Osasco one day before the conference and the event itself was covered by one TV channel (the biggest one in Brazil, TV Globo), two radio stations (one national, one local) and several local and national newspapers. After the conference two more tv’s visited our communities in Osasco and made interesting reportages on their news programs.

Savers meetings:
Two main savers meetings were held in Várzea Paulista and São Paulo. The first meeting at the first half of the year was in Várzea Paulista with more than 50 participants, the second one a mix of work and leisure in an entertainment park in São Paulo had more than 200 participants, and was very important for the integration of the savers and their families that had the opportunity to learn more about the groups, work with municipalities and SDI network.

 

V – Housing projects

Besides de regularization project for Vila Real in Várzea Paulista, two other projects started in Osasco. The municipality acquired land and hired an engineering company to design with the communities constructions projects to attend the demand from Jardim Aliança, Portal Campo and Portal Meinc.

The project for the communities Portal Campo and Meinc will be one, to integrate the separated collectives in just one neighborhood. The first feasibility studies show a cost of about R$ 30.000 (US$ 13.600) per unit, as land is scarce in Osasco housing solutions must be vertical and it makes the construction costs extremely high.

Together with a private sector partner, Caixa Econômica (Brazilian Housing Bank), municipal and federal government the community is structuring the financial architecture for covering the constructions costs, infra + housing. The idea is to sum local and national subsidies and achieve an amount of R$ 24.000 subsidies (excluded the costs of the already acquired land of approx R$ 6.500/family), so the community has to handle about R$ 6.000 per family in order to cover all the costs.

So, the big challenges will be:

  1. Integrate the maximum number of families to the savings network (we have about 120 families of a total of 600).
  2. Fill the gap of R$ 6.000 per family. That can be done through their own savings, donations from the private sector and bank financing. Since we have in Brazil no micro finance products for housing we are working with an international bank in order to create and implement a specific product for the families part of the savings network.

As explained above the challenges for the first housing project in Osasco are not small it depends on the timing and availability of subsidies from national and city level, expand and strengthen savings and create a totally new financial product. The timing for the project is estimated in six months, so we have the first half of 2007 to concentrate efforts and put all those elements working.

The other project for Jardim Aliança has similar conditions, but it is in another area and the families must be relocated, so as for the Portais we must concentrate efforts to put together the possible subsidies, strengthen savings and find out financial possibilities.

We are working on meeting with local governments in order to move on regularization and housing programs in three municipalities: São Paulo (new), Osasco and Várzea Paulista. 


VI – Partnerships and funding

In 2007 we established partnerships with two NGO’s located in Sorocaba and Santos, respectively Lua Nova and Instituto Elos, they are supporting us on spreading the savings networks to their cities.

Besides we are now trying to establish links with the state government of Ceará and Alagoas, and again Municipality of Rio de Janeiro.

In reference to funding we were funded in 2006 by Municipality of Várzea Paulista, Economisa (private financial institution), European Union, Government of Norway, Ashoka and SDI.

We designed a proposal for Cities Alliance in order to support a three cities partnership: Osasco (Brazil), Quelimane (Mozambique) and Durban (SA), and are now waiting for a feed back.

Also in 2006 we applied for funds from the European Union in order to scale up the savings in Osasco and integrate with other social and cultural programs but it was refuse. Small projects to Brazilian foundations were also rejected.

For 2007 plans are consolidate the project with Cities Alliance, apply for the European Union, present a proposal to Norway and engage more support from the private sector, mainly banks and construction material industries. We will also work on new partnerships with the public sector, municipalities and state government following the model from Várzea Paulista, where Interação is in charge of consolidating the community data bank, support the regularization process and make the social work.

Also for 2007 we want to strengthen the link to Caixa Econômica Federal through the housing projects in Osasco and also with the headquarters in Brasília on their cooperation agreement with the Government of Namibia, the main purpose is to integrate community and savings members on their exchange activities for government professional funded by the Brazilian National Government.

São Paulo 28/12/2006
AMCR