24 de agosto de 2009
Portal minhaseconomias fecha parceria com CDI Paraná e com o programa Miniempresa, da Junior Archievement
Ensinar aos jovens para que eles possam ser os multiplicadores de um conhecimento importante: a educação financeira. Este é o objetivo do portal www.minhaseconomias.com.br na parceria recém criada com o CDI Paraná - Comitê para Democratização da Informática, regional Paraná - uma ONG voltada à inclusão digital. A parceria também envolve a Junior Achievement, ONG desenvolvedora do programa Miniempresa em escolas do Ensino Médio.
"O estamos fazendo é disponibilizar nossa ferramenta de controle financeiro e nossos conhecimentos na área de educação financeira para que os parceiros possam utilizá-los nas atividades de educação e administração de seus projetos", explica Marcelo Kimura, um dos criadores do Minhas Economias. "Em 2007 atuei como adviser na Junior Achievement através do programa Miniempresa. Achei interessante customizar o conteúdo para que os advisers financeiros de 2009 possam acompanhar os resultados das miniempresas com mais tranquilidade."
O programa Miniempresa, da Junior Archievement, proporciona a estudantes do 2º ano do Ensino Médio a experiência prática em economia e negócios, na organização de uma empresa. Os estudantes aprendem conceitos de livre iniciativa, mercado, comercialização e produção. O Programa é acompanhado por quatro profissionais voluntários das áreas de Marketing, Finanças, Recursos Humanos e Produção. Durante o Miniempresa são explicados os fundamentos da economia de mercado e da atividade empresarial através do método Aprender-Fazendo, onde cada participante se converte em um miniempresário. Só em 2008 foram atendidos 1.291 alunos em 42 escolas, com a participação de 195 voluntários.
"Fomos um dos primeiros parceiros procurados pelo Minhas Economias", comenta Fabrício Cardoso Campos, diretor executivo da Junior Achievement Paraná. "Recebemos uma oferta tanto para os jovens administrarem seus sonhos, quanto para o programa Miniempresa, numa forma mais customizada. O grande diferencial é ter o recurso on-line, complementando os ensinamentos dos nossos voluntários e permitindo que o aluno se exercite com mais frequência. Para o Minhas Economias, acredito que seja uma forma diferente de fazer o voluntariado. É como se fosse uma tutoria. Com os alunos envolvidos no Miniempresa usando todos uma mesma ferramenta fica muito mais prático e eficiente. Estamos com as escolas de Curitiba, mas logo iniciaremos a parceria também com as escolas de Londrina e Ponta Grossa. Também estamos vendo a possibilidade de que o Minhas Economias seja usado nacionalmente pela Junior Achievement."
Reaplicando na comunidade
Com o CDI Paraná, a ideia é capacitar todas as EICs - Escolas de Informática e Cidadania, a usarem o sistema e reaplicar o conhecimento nas comunidades. "Em parceria com o CDI, estamos desenvolvendo materiais específicos para essa capacitação" comenta Kimura.
Criada inicialmente no Rio de Janeiro, o CDI é uma organização não governamental que desde 1995 desenvolve o trabalho pioneiro de promover a inclusão social, utilizando a tecnologia da informação como um instrumento para a construção e o exercício da cidadania. Através das EICs implementa programas educacionais no Brasil e no exterior, com o objetivo de mobilizar os segmentos excluídos da sociedade para a transformação de sua realidade. Nesses 14 anos de atuação, o CDI já está presente em 19 Estados brasileiros e 8 países, com a marca de 62 mil pessoas capacitadas por ano, o que inclui não apenas as comunidades de baixa renda, mas também instituições que atendem a idosos, presidiários, populações indígenas e portadores de necessidades especiais.
No Paraná, atualmente são 11 EICs em funcionamento e mais de 3 mil pessoas formadas por ano nos cursos de informática e cidadania. "Nossa ideia é iniciar o projeto aqui e depois expandir para toda a rede do CDI", explica Marcelo Kimura.
"O projeto começará aqui no Paraná e depois deverá se transformar numa ferramenta importante para toda a rede", concorda Edgard Spitz Pinel, diretor do CDI Paraná. "Isso porque o CDI está saindo do conceito EICs e partindo para o conceito maior de CDI Comunidade. Isso envolve plano de negócios e a oferta de cursos e oficinas que vão permitir às comunidades abrirem novos empreendimentos. Nós já dávamos o curso de escrita fiscal, mas o Minhas Economias se encaixa bem nessa nova realidade. Como a educação financeira, no Brasil, é algo que não é trabalhado nas escolas e nem culturalmente, a ferramenta de controle on-line vem preencher essa lacuna. Por ser fácil e inovadora, tem a condição de se espalhar rapidamente principalmente nessas comunidades de baixa renda onde a necessidade de controle das finanças é tão grande."
Fonte: http://www.cotidianodigital.com.br/menu_05/noticia.asp?id=544
sexta-feira, 28 de agosto de 2009
Treinamento - Inclusão digital no Shopping Praia da Costa
25/08/2009 - 00h00 (Outros - Outros)
O Shopping Praia da Costa vai abrir na próxima quinta-feira, dia 27, uma sala do Comitê para Democratização da Informática (CDI), para promover a inclusão digital. São 50 vagas gratuitas para cursos sobre Windows, Office e internet. O idealizador do CDI, Rodrigo Baggio, vai estar presente na inauguração, às 16h. As aulas acontecerão duas vezes por semana, pelo período de 1h30 cada, por seis meses.
Fonte: http://gazetaonline.globo.com/index.php?id=/local/a_gazeta/materia.php&cd_matia=526476
O Shopping Praia da Costa vai abrir na próxima quinta-feira, dia 27, uma sala do Comitê para Democratização da Informática (CDI), para promover a inclusão digital. São 50 vagas gratuitas para cursos sobre Windows, Office e internet. O idealizador do CDI, Rodrigo Baggio, vai estar presente na inauguração, às 16h. As aulas acontecerão duas vezes por semana, pelo período de 1h30 cada, por seis meses.
Fonte: http://gazetaonline.globo.com/index.php?id=/local/a_gazeta/materia.php&cd_matia=526476
quarta-feira, 26 de agosto de 2009
Viva o CDI!
25.8.2009 16h05m
Enviado por Aydano André Motta
Inclusão digital fashion
Domingo, num evento beneficente conduzido pela empresária Jayma Cardoso e patrocinado, entre outros, pela dona do SPA Maria Bonita, Fernanda Lacerda, o CDI - Comitê pela Democratização da Informática, iniciativa super do bem que desvenda os mistérios da computação para quem não tem acesso à tecnologia - foi agraciado US$ 7 mil, pelo trabalho de inclusão digital em favor de populações de baixa renda.
O evento aconteceu no Surf Lodge, um reduto de surfistas e público fashion, em Nova York, com a presença de celebridades. Entre elas, a cantora Bebel Glberto e Ziggy Marley, filho de Bob Marley.
Fonte: http://oglobo.globo.com/rio/ancelmo/posts/2009/08/25/inclusao-digital-fashion-217238.asp
Enviado por Aydano André Motta
Inclusão digital fashion
Domingo, num evento beneficente conduzido pela empresária Jayma Cardoso e patrocinado, entre outros, pela dona do SPA Maria Bonita, Fernanda Lacerda, o CDI - Comitê pela Democratização da Informática, iniciativa super do bem que desvenda os mistérios da computação para quem não tem acesso à tecnologia - foi agraciado US$ 7 mil, pelo trabalho de inclusão digital em favor de populações de baixa renda.
O evento aconteceu no Surf Lodge, um reduto de surfistas e público fashion, em Nova York, com a presença de celebridades. Entre elas, a cantora Bebel Glberto e Ziggy Marley, filho de Bob Marley.
Fonte: http://oglobo.globo.com/rio/ancelmo/posts/2009/08/25/inclusao-digital-fashion-217238.asp
terça-feira, 25 de agosto de 2009
segunda-feira, 24 de agosto de 2009
EDUCAÇÃO FINANCEIRA PARA INCLUSÃO
Minhas Economias fecha parcerias visando a inclusão social e digital no que diz respeito à educação financeira de jovens e comunidades de baixa renda.
Ensinar aos jovens para que eles possam ser os multiplicadores de um conhecimento mais que importante nos dias de hoje: a educação financeira. Foi com essa ideia que o Minhas Economias - www.minhaseconomias.com.br fechou parcerias com o CDI Paraná - o Comitê para Democratização da Informática, ONG voltada à inclusão digital, e com a Junior Achievement, ONG desenvolvedora do programa Miniempresa em escolas do Ensino Médio.
"Pelas parcerias, o que estamos fazendo é disponibilizar nossa ferramenta de controle financeiro e nossos conhecimentos na área de educação financeira para que os novos parceiros possam utilizá-los nas atividades de educação e administração de seus projetos", explica Marcelo Kimura, um dos criadores do Minhas Economias. "Em 2007 atuei como adviser na Junior Achievement através do programa Miniempresa. Achei interessante customizar o conteúdo para que os advisers financeiros de 2009 possam acompanhar os resultados das miniempresas com mais tranquilidade."
O programa Miniempresa, da Junior Archievement, proporciona a estudantes do 2º ano do Ensino Médio a experiência prática em economia e negócios, na organização de uma empresa. Os estudantes aprendem conceitos de livre iniciativa, mercado, comercialização e produção. O Programa é acompanhado por quatro profissionais voluntários das áreas de Marketing, Finanças, Recursos Humanos e Produção. Durante o Miniempresa são explicados os fundamentos da economia de mercado e da atividade empresarial através do método Aprender-Fazendo, onde cada participante se converte em um miniempresário. Só em 2008 foram atendidos 1.291 alunos em 42 escolas, com a participação de 195 voluntários.
"Fomos um dos primeiros parceiros procurados pelo Minhas Economias", comenta Fabrício Cardoso Campos, diretor executivo da Junior Achievement Paraná. "Recebemos uma oferta tanto para os jovens administrarem seus sonhos, quanto para o programa Miniempresa, numa forma mais customizada. O grande diferencial é ter o recurso on-line, complementando os ensinamentos dos nossos voluntários e permitindo que o aluno se exercite com mais frequência. Para o Minhas Economias, acredito que seja uma forma diferente de fazer o voluntariado. É como se fosse uma tutoria. Com os alunos envolvidos no Miniempresa usando todos uma mesma ferramenta fica muito mais prático e eficiente. Estamos com as escolas de Curitiba, mas logo iniciaremos a parceria também com as escolas de Londrina e Ponta Grossa. Também estamos vendo a possibilidade de que o Minhas Economias seja usado nacionalmente pela Junior Achievement."
Reaplicando na comunidade
Já na parceria com o CDI Paraná, a ideia é capacitar todas as EICs, Escolas de Informática e Cidadania a usar o sistema e reaplicar os conhecimentos nas comunidades. "Em parceria com o CDI, estamos desenvolvendo materiais específicos para essa capacitação" comenta Kimura.
Criada inicialmente no Rio de Janeiro, o CDI é uma organização não governamental que desde 1995 desenvolve o trabalho pioneiro de promover a inclusão social, utilizando a tecnologia da informação como um instrumento para a construção e o exercício da cidadania. Através das EICs implementa programas educacionais no Brasil e no exterior, com o objetivo de mobilizar os segmentos excluídos da sociedade para a transformação de sua realidade. Nesses 14 anos de atuação, o CDI já está presente em 19 Estados brasileiros e 8 países, com a marca de 62 mil pessoas capacitadas por ano, o que inclui não apenas as comunidades de baixa renda, mas também instituições que atendem a idosos, presidiários, populações indígenas e portadores de necessidades especiais.
No Paraná, atualmente são 11 EICs em funcionamento e mais de 3 mil pessoas formadas por ano nos cursos de informática e cidadania. "Nossa ideia é iniciar o projeto aqui e depois expandir para toda a rede do CDI", explica Marcelo Kimura.
"O projeto começará aqui no Paraná e depois deverá se transformar numa ferramenta importante para toda a rede", concorda Edgard Spitz Pinel, diretor do CDI Paraná. "Isso porque o CDI está saindo do conceito EICs e partindo para o conceito maior de CDI Comunidade. Isso envolve plano de negócios e a oferta de cursos e oficinas que vão permitir às comunidades abrirem novos empreendimentos. Nós já dávamos o curso de escrita fiscal, mas o Minhas Economias se encaixa bem nessa nova realidade. Como a educação financeira, no Brasil, é algo que não é trabalhado nas escolas e nem culturalmente, a ferramenta de controle on-line vem preencher essa lacuna. Por ser fácil e inovadora, tem a condição de se espalhar rapidamente principalmente nessas comunidades de baixa renda onde a necessidade de controle das finanças é tão grande."
Sobre o Minhas Economias
O objetivo do Minhas Economias é contribuir para a melhoria da qualidade de vida das pessoas através de conteúdos e ferramentas de educação financeira. Para isso, disponibiliza um Blog com dicas práticas de como economizar mais para viver melhor e também um sistema para controlar as finanças. O site é totalmente gratuito e seguro e o cadastro não exige informações que possam identificar o usuário como nome, CPF ou dados bancários.
Controlar os gastos não é uma tarefa agradável, mas o Minhas Economias procura facilitar a vida das pessoas com diversas funcionalidades. O usuário pode importar extratos bancários ou planilhas eletrônicas de despesas e analisar suas finanças através de gráficos e relatórios. Para auxiliar os usuários iniciantes, o site também disponibiliza um FAQ e um tutorial com vídeos explicativos. Para conhecer mais, acesse www.minhaseconomias.com.br e blog.minhaseconomias.com.br. O Minhas Economias também pode ser encontrado no Twitter. Basta acessar http://twitter.com/minhaseconomias
Fonte: http://www.maxpress.com.br/noticia.asp?TIPO=PA&SQINF=392988
Ensinar aos jovens para que eles possam ser os multiplicadores de um conhecimento mais que importante nos dias de hoje: a educação financeira. Foi com essa ideia que o Minhas Economias - www.minhaseconomias.com.br fechou parcerias com o CDI Paraná - o Comitê para Democratização da Informática, ONG voltada à inclusão digital, e com a Junior Achievement, ONG desenvolvedora do programa Miniempresa em escolas do Ensino Médio.
"Pelas parcerias, o que estamos fazendo é disponibilizar nossa ferramenta de controle financeiro e nossos conhecimentos na área de educação financeira para que os novos parceiros possam utilizá-los nas atividades de educação e administração de seus projetos", explica Marcelo Kimura, um dos criadores do Minhas Economias. "Em 2007 atuei como adviser na Junior Achievement através do programa Miniempresa. Achei interessante customizar o conteúdo para que os advisers financeiros de 2009 possam acompanhar os resultados das miniempresas com mais tranquilidade."
O programa Miniempresa, da Junior Archievement, proporciona a estudantes do 2º ano do Ensino Médio a experiência prática em economia e negócios, na organização de uma empresa. Os estudantes aprendem conceitos de livre iniciativa, mercado, comercialização e produção. O Programa é acompanhado por quatro profissionais voluntários das áreas de Marketing, Finanças, Recursos Humanos e Produção. Durante o Miniempresa são explicados os fundamentos da economia de mercado e da atividade empresarial através do método Aprender-Fazendo, onde cada participante se converte em um miniempresário. Só em 2008 foram atendidos 1.291 alunos em 42 escolas, com a participação de 195 voluntários.
"Fomos um dos primeiros parceiros procurados pelo Minhas Economias", comenta Fabrício Cardoso Campos, diretor executivo da Junior Achievement Paraná. "Recebemos uma oferta tanto para os jovens administrarem seus sonhos, quanto para o programa Miniempresa, numa forma mais customizada. O grande diferencial é ter o recurso on-line, complementando os ensinamentos dos nossos voluntários e permitindo que o aluno se exercite com mais frequência. Para o Minhas Economias, acredito que seja uma forma diferente de fazer o voluntariado. É como se fosse uma tutoria. Com os alunos envolvidos no Miniempresa usando todos uma mesma ferramenta fica muito mais prático e eficiente. Estamos com as escolas de Curitiba, mas logo iniciaremos a parceria também com as escolas de Londrina e Ponta Grossa. Também estamos vendo a possibilidade de que o Minhas Economias seja usado nacionalmente pela Junior Achievement."
Reaplicando na comunidade
Já na parceria com o CDI Paraná, a ideia é capacitar todas as EICs, Escolas de Informática e Cidadania a usar o sistema e reaplicar os conhecimentos nas comunidades. "Em parceria com o CDI, estamos desenvolvendo materiais específicos para essa capacitação" comenta Kimura.
Criada inicialmente no Rio de Janeiro, o CDI é uma organização não governamental que desde 1995 desenvolve o trabalho pioneiro de promover a inclusão social, utilizando a tecnologia da informação como um instrumento para a construção e o exercício da cidadania. Através das EICs implementa programas educacionais no Brasil e no exterior, com o objetivo de mobilizar os segmentos excluídos da sociedade para a transformação de sua realidade. Nesses 14 anos de atuação, o CDI já está presente em 19 Estados brasileiros e 8 países, com a marca de 62 mil pessoas capacitadas por ano, o que inclui não apenas as comunidades de baixa renda, mas também instituições que atendem a idosos, presidiários, populações indígenas e portadores de necessidades especiais.
No Paraná, atualmente são 11 EICs em funcionamento e mais de 3 mil pessoas formadas por ano nos cursos de informática e cidadania. "Nossa ideia é iniciar o projeto aqui e depois expandir para toda a rede do CDI", explica Marcelo Kimura.
"O projeto começará aqui no Paraná e depois deverá se transformar numa ferramenta importante para toda a rede", concorda Edgard Spitz Pinel, diretor do CDI Paraná. "Isso porque o CDI está saindo do conceito EICs e partindo para o conceito maior de CDI Comunidade. Isso envolve plano de negócios e a oferta de cursos e oficinas que vão permitir às comunidades abrirem novos empreendimentos. Nós já dávamos o curso de escrita fiscal, mas o Minhas Economias se encaixa bem nessa nova realidade. Como a educação financeira, no Brasil, é algo que não é trabalhado nas escolas e nem culturalmente, a ferramenta de controle on-line vem preencher essa lacuna. Por ser fácil e inovadora, tem a condição de se espalhar rapidamente principalmente nessas comunidades de baixa renda onde a necessidade de controle das finanças é tão grande."
Sobre o Minhas Economias
O objetivo do Minhas Economias é contribuir para a melhoria da qualidade de vida das pessoas através de conteúdos e ferramentas de educação financeira. Para isso, disponibiliza um Blog com dicas práticas de como economizar mais para viver melhor e também um sistema para controlar as finanças. O site é totalmente gratuito e seguro e o cadastro não exige informações que possam identificar o usuário como nome, CPF ou dados bancários.
Controlar os gastos não é uma tarefa agradável, mas o Minhas Economias procura facilitar a vida das pessoas com diversas funcionalidades. O usuário pode importar extratos bancários ou planilhas eletrônicas de despesas e analisar suas finanças através de gráficos e relatórios. Para auxiliar os usuários iniciantes, o site também disponibiliza um FAQ e um tutorial com vídeos explicativos. Para conhecer mais, acesse www.minhaseconomias.com.br e blog.minhaseconomias.com.br. O Minhas Economias também pode ser encontrado no Twitter. Basta acessar http://twitter.com/minhaseconomias
Fonte: http://www.maxpress.com.br/noticia.asp?TIPO=PA&SQINF=392988
Everyone a Changemaker: Social Entrepreneurship's Ultimate Goal
02/22/07
By Bill Drayton
This excerpt and related Letters to the Editors republished with kind permission from Innovations journal.
Rodrigo Baggio grew up in Rio de Janeiro loving computers. As he matured into an extraordinarily tall, thin man with a hugely wide smile, he became a computer consultant. However, from early on, he was one of the few in his generation who noticed—with concern—that the young people growing up in the favelas on the hills overlooking his middle-class neighborhood had no access to this digital world.
Because he has the great entrepreneur's tenacity of observation and thought as well as action, he decided he had to take on the digital divide—well before the phrase came into currency—and he has been pursuing this vision relentlessly ever since. While beginning to work toward this dream as a teenager, he learned just how motivated and capable of learning the young people in the favelas were. And also how competent the favela community was in organizing. This respect underlies the central insight that has allowed Rodrigo to have a growing multi-continental impact.
Rodrigo provides only what the community cannot: typically computers, software, and training. The community does the organizing, finding space, recruiting the students and faculty, and providing ongoing administration. The result is a uniquely economical model, and also one where, because the investment strengthens the broader community, it is self-sustaining and a foundation for other initiatives long into the future.
Rodrigo's chain of hundreds of community-based computer training schools now serves hundreds of slums across Latin America and Asia. These schools now have 700,000 graduates.
I got a sense of Rodrigo's power when he came to Washington shortly after being elected an Ashoka Fellow. Somehow he convinced the Inter-American Development Bank to give him its used (but highly valuable) computers. Somehow he convinced the Brazilian Air Force first to warehouse and then to fly these computers home. And then he somehow managed to persuade the Brazilian customs authority to allow all these computers in at a time when Brazil was trying to block computer imports.
Several years later, I got a further sense of how his mind worked, when I asked him why he was starting his work in Asia in Japan. Japan, he said, was the only large Asian source of computers where he could imagine getting people to give them to him. Therefore, as his first step, he had to demonstrate the value of his program to the Japanese in several of their own slums.
That is how entrepreneurs work. Having decided that the world must change in some important way, they simply find and build highways that lead inexorably to that result. Where others see barriers, they delight in finding solutions and in turning them into society's new and concrete patterns.
That much is easy to observe. However, there is more to it. Somehow, an unknown, young, lanky Rodrigo, the head of a new and unknown citizen organization, persuaded the managers of one after another of society's big institutions to do things they never would have imagined. He knew they were the right and logical things to do. Somehow they sensed that inner confidence and found it surprisingly persuasive.
What were they sensing? Rodrigo's words and arguments no doubt helped, but few people are willing to step out beyond the safely conventional merely on the basis of good arguments.
Rodrigo was persuasive because his listeners sensed something deeper.
What Rodrigo was proposing was not just an idea, but the central logic of his life—as it is for every great entrepreneur. He mastered and came to love the new digital world from the time he was a young boy. More important, his values from early on drove him to care about the poverty and inequality he could see on the hillsides rising behind the middle-class Rio in which he was growing up. His values and his temperament had him taking on the digital divide before the term was invented.
As a result, when Rodrigo sat across the table from the much older, powerful officials he needed to move, they were confronting not just a good idea, but deeply rooted and life-defining values: non-egoistic, kindly determination and commitment.
This values-based faith is the ultimate power of the first-class entrepreneur. It is a quality others sense and trust, whether or not they really fully grasp the idea intellectually. Even though they would not normally want to step out in front of the crowd, a quiet voice tells them to trust Rodrigo and go with his vision.
Any assessment of Rodrigo's impact that stopped with his idea, let alone his business plan, would not have penetrated to the core of his power. Our field has been impoverished by too many assessments that never get to the essence.
Nor is Rodrigo's most important impact his schools or the life-changing independence and mastery he provides his students. Consider the impact Rodrigo has on a community when he introduces his program. It is not a school created by the government or outsiders. It is a school created by, funded by, managed by, and staffed by people in the community. The students are responsible for learning and then making their way. Think how many patterns and stereotypes are crumpled by these simple and very obvious facts. The psychological impact is a bit like India emerging from 50 years of falling behind to suddenly being recognized as the new challenger at the cutting edge of the most advanced part of the world's economy.
Accompanying this disruption of old patterns of action and perception is another contribution, and I believe it is the greatest one of Rodrigo and every entrepreneur: the idea of catalyzing new local changemakers into being. Unless the entrepreneur can get someone in one community after another to step forward and seize his or her idea, the entrepreneur will never achieve the spread that is essential to his or her life success. Consequently, the entrepreneur presents his or her idea to the local community in the most enticing, safe, understandable, and user-friendly ways possible.
Of course, the entrepreneur's own life story is in itself a beacon encouraging hundreds of others to care and to take initiative. This also increases the number of local changemakers.
Moreover, when these local champions then build the teams they need to launch the idea they have adopted, they are providing not only encouragement but also training to potential next-generation local changemakers.
As the field of social entrepreneurship has grown and multiplied and wired itself together across the globe over the last 25 years, the rate of this plowing and seeding at the local level has accelerated dramatically.
As the number of leading pattern-changing social entrepreneurs has been increasing everywhere, and as the geographic reach of their ideas has been expanding ever more rapidly, the rate of plowing and seeding therefore has multiplied. As have the number of local changemakers.
This whole process is enormously contagious. As the number of large-scale entrepreneurs and local changemakers multiplies, so does the number of support institutions, all of these make the next generation of entrepreneuring and changemaking easier. Not only do people not resist, but in fact, they respond readily to this change. Who wants to be an object when they could be changemakers, when they could live lives far more creative and contributory and therefore respected and valued?
As important as Rodrigo's impact is on the digital divide and on the lives and communities he serves, I believe this second dimension of his impact is far more important—especially at this transitional moment in history.
The most important contribution any of us can make now is not to solve any particular problem, no matter how urgent energy or environment or financial regulation is. What we must do now is increase the proportion of humans who know that they can cause change. And who, like smart white blood cells coursing through society, will stop with pleasure whenever they see that something is stuck or that an opportunity is ripe to be seized. Multiplying society's capacity to adapt and change intelligently and constructively and building the necessary underlying collaborative architecture, is the world's most critical opportunity now. Patternchanging leading social entrepreneurs are the most critical single factor in catalyzing and engineering this transformation.
EVERYONE A CHANGEMAKER
The agricultural revolution produced only a small surplus, so only a small elite could move into the towns to create culture and conscious history. This pattern has persisted ever since: only a few have held the monopoly on initiative because they alone have had the social tools.
That is one reason that per capita income in the West remained flat from the fall of the Roman Empire until about 1700.
By 1700, however, a new, more open architecture was beginning to develop in northern Europe: entrepreneurial/competitive business facilitated by more tolerant, open politics. The new business model rewarded people who would step up with better ideas and implement them, igniting a relentlessly expanding cycle of entrepreneurial innovation leading to productivity gains, leading to ever more entrepreneurs, successful innovation, and productivity gains.
One result: the West broke out from 1,200 years of stagnation and soon soared past anything the world had seen before. Average per capita income rose 20 percent in the 1700s, 200 percent in the 1800s, and 740 percent in the last century.
The press reported the wars and other follies, but for the last 300 years this profound innovation in how humans organize themselves has been the defining, decisive historical force at work.
However, until 1980, this transformation bypassed the social half of the world's operations. Society taxed the new wealth created by business to pay for its roads and canals, schools and welfare systems. There was no need to change. Moreover, no monopoly, public or private, welcomes competition because it is very likely to lose. Thus, the social sector had little felt need to change and a paymaster that actively discouraged it.
Hence, the squalor of the social sector. Relative performance declining at an accelerating rate. And consequent low repute, dismal pay, and poor self-esteem and élan.
By the nineteenth century, a few modern social entrepreneurs began to appear. The anti-slavery leagues and Florence Nightingale are outstanding examples. But they remained islands.
It was only around 1980 that the ice began to crack and the social arena as a whole made the structural leap to this new entrepreneurial competitive architecture.
However, once the ice broke, catch-up change came in a rush. And it did so pretty much all across the world, the chief exceptions being areas where governments were afraid.
Because it has the advantage of not having to be the pioneer, but rather of following business, this second great transformation has been able steadily to compound productivity growth at a very fast rate. In this it resembles successful developing countries like Thailand.
Ashoka's best estimate is that the citizen sector is halving the gap between its productivity level and that of business every 10 to 12 years.
This rapidly rising productivity means that the cost of the goods and services produced by the citizen sector is falling relative to those produced by business—reversing the pricing pattern of the last centuries that led to the much-criticized "consumer" culture.
As a result, as resources flow into the citizen sector, it is growing explosively. It is generating jobs two and a half to three times as fast as business. There are now millions of modern, competing citizen groups, including big, sophisticated second-generation organizations, in each of the four main areas where the field has emerged most vigorously: Brazil-focused South America, Mexico/U.S./Canada, Europe, and South and Southeast Asia. (The field is also growing vigorously in Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, and Australia/New Zealand, but these are much smaller clusters.) All this, of course, has dramatically altered the field's élan and attractiveness.
This is where the job growth is, not to mention the most challenging, value-rooted, and increasingly even well-paid jobs. Just listen to today's "business" school students.
Given the results-based power of this transformation of the citizen sector, more and more local changemakers are emerging. Some of these learn and later expand the pool of leading social entrepreneurs. To the degree they succeed locally, they give wings to the entrepreneur whose idea they have taken up, they encourage neighbors also to become changemakers, and they cumulatively build the institutions and attitudes that make local changemaking progressively easier and more respected. All of which eases the tasks facing the next generation of primary pattern-change entrepreneurs.
This virtuous cycle catalyzed by leading social entrepreneurs and local changemakers is the chief engine now moving the world toward an "everyone a changemaker" future.
No matter how powerful this dynamic is, however, several other changes are necessary if society is to navigate this transition successfully:
Most important, society cannot significantly increase the proportion of adults who are, and know they are, changemakers and who have mastered the necessary and complex underlying social skills until it changes the way all young people live.
Although it is normal for support areas like finance to lag behind change in the operating areas they serve, the emergent citizen sector is now at significant risk unless it can quickly engineer major structural changes in both its institutional finance sector and the broad grassroots sources of support in its post-breakeven zone.
TRANSFORMING THE YOUTH YEARS
There are well over 400 Ashoka leading social entrepreneurs whose primary goal is getting society to do a far better job of helping all children and young people to learn and grow up successfully. Each has a powerful, proven, society-wide approach. (Between 49 percent and 60 percent of those elected by Ashoka have changed national policy within five years of their startup-stage election.)
However, each of these approaches is a partial answer. It is built around one insight or principle, works through one delivery system, and addresses one or two client groups. Ashoka's "mosaic" process brings all these powerful elements together, draws out the few universal principles that open major new strategic opportunities for the key decision makers in a field (e.g., in this case, those who run schools and youth programs), and then markets these principles. In effect, these mosaic collaborations promise our community the ability to entrepreneur together, an advance that produces far bigger impact than anything the sum of our solo ventures could achieve.
Roughly two-thirds of these 400-plus youth-focused Ashoka entrepreneurs have learned the same three powerful principles. Because they need human resources to implement their vision and cannot realistically get more teachers, they turn to young people. That young people are a huge, and in fact usually the only significant available human resource is the first insight. The other two follow logically: first, the unconventional assumption that young people are or can be competent; and second, the idea that one must transform youth communities (e.g., in schools) so that they become competent at initiating and organizing, and then train and reward their young people in these skills. Applying these three principles in hundreds of different ways and across the globe produces strikingly similar and powerful results: motivated students, better academic results, and young people who are experiencing being in charge. And a very different feel to those schools and programs from the moment one walks in.
Whether these social entrepreneurs discovered and developed these principles to solve their staffing problems and/or with broader educational purpose, collectively they have created a most powerful set of tools to transform the youth years. Moreover, the repeated success they have had in large-scale and highly diverse applications of these principles leaves one with enormous confidence in the power and practicability of these principles.
Ashoka's young people's mosaic also identified another principle that fits closely with this first cluster: anyone (or any group) who does not master the complex social skill of guiding his or her behavior through applied empathy will be marginalized. Since this is the enormously cruel, destructive state of perhaps 30 percent of the world's people, helping young people master empathy is proportionately important. One of the best ways of doing so is by encouraging them to build teams to contribute important changes and/or services. If their team is to succeed, they must master teamwork, which in turn rests on applied empathy.
Ashoka began developing its mosaic process and the pioneer young people's application in 1990. It was, however, only quite recently that Ashoka realized that its ultimate purpose, an "everyone a changemaker" world, is an unreachable fantasy unless the youth years become years of practicing being powerful and acquiring the required underlying skills: applied empathy, teamwork, and leadership. This realization suddenly puts the mosaic's core principles in a new light: They are as powerful as they are in large part because they are so key to unlocking this historical transition.
If young people do not grow up being powerful, causing change, and practicing these three interlocked underlying skills, they will reach adulthood with a self-definition that does not include changemaking and a social skill set that largely precludes it. Just as one must develop strong emotional foundations in the first three years of life or suffer for a lifetime, young people must master and practice these social skills and the high art of being powerful in and through society while they are young.
Consider how sophisticated the learned skill of applied empathy is: As we contemplate each action, we must comprehend how it will impact everyone at several removes around us and long into the future—and then guide our behavior accordingly. Our world now requires that skill as the ticket of admission to most simple levels of society. A dependably good person can no longer rely only on rules because they are increasingly in conflict, changing, or have yet to be developed.
Those without this complex skill will be marginalized. Moreover, mastering it is only the first step toward learning teamwork and leadership. Like ballet, these skills require extensive and real practice.
The children of elite families grow up at home and usually in school being expected to take initiative and being rewarded for doing so. This confident ability to master new situations and initiate whatever changes or actions are needed is in essence what defines the elite. Entering adult life with confidence and mastery of empathy/teamwork/leadership skills is what ultimately has given this small group control of the initiative and therefore of power and resources for millennia.
However, the other 97 percent grow up getting very little such experience with taking initiative. Adults control the classroom, work setting, and even sports and extra-curricular activities. And this situation, coupled with society's attitudes, drums home the message to this majority: "You're not competent or perhaps even responsible. Please don't try to start things; we can do it far better." Teachers, social workers and others are comfortably in control; and, in fact, most school and other youth cultures are not competent and do not train and support and respect initiative-taking. Instead, the peer group culture, not surprisingly, is resentful and in the worst cultures, quite negative.
Do these inarticulate, frustrated youth cultures bring analogous prior situations to mind? Over the last century, many other groups—including women, African Americans, those with disabilities, even colonial peoples—had to make their way from debilitating stereotypes and little prior practice in taking the initiative to becoming fully accepted, capable contributors. These groups, although very different from one another, had to travel strongly similar human and community transformation paths.
Young people are the last big group to set out on this journey. They are also different; but, in the underlying psychological and organizational transitions ahead, they can learn a great deal from the experience of these other groups.
Building on the history of these earlier movements and also on the accumulated experience of hundreds of leading social entrepreneurs working with young people, Ashoka and many partners have prototyped and are beginning to launch at scale the equivalent of a women's or older person's movement for young people.
Although this movement must ultimately change how everyone thinks about and relates to young people, it is young people and their peer communities who will have to change most and who have the most to gain. Therefore, as with all the earlier similar transformations, it is essential that they be central actors—both in actually shifting to the new pattern (because the best learning comes from action) and in championing the change (because people in any class are most likely to hear and trust peers).
This emergent movement will be far bigger than Ashoka, and once it is past the next six to ten intensely entrepreneurial years, it will require extensive operating management that is culturally inappropriate for Ashoka's "collegial/intrapreneurial" essence. Ashoka has therefore created an independent but close partner, Youth Venture. Working closely with Ashoka's young people "mosaic" team, it has the lead in major spread and emerging operating work. How to launch and build such a movement?
Ashoka, Youth Venture, and their partners are following a strategy that exercises enormously powerful jujitsu-like leverage; leverage that works on four mutually reinforcing levels.
Each of these four levels in Table 1 needs the others. But they will not snap into place together or everywhere in society instantly. This makes the job facing the pioneers much harder than it will be for their successors; and it requires a phased, several-stage strategy. The central challenge is getting to the scale where the synergies between these four levels— and across schools, neighborhoods, and regions—kick in and become irreversibly self-multiplying. Ashoka/Youth Venture, recognizing this is the heart of the matter, has been experimenting with a dozen different avenues and is gaining increasing traction. Here are some examples:
Partnering with national organizations with many chapters (e.g., the Girl Scouts) or broad reach (e.g., Youth Services America).
Co-venturing with public-spirited corporate partners, including experimenting with engaging staff, local units, and key customers as nominators, Youth Venturer Allies, and local organizers. (Most recently with Staples in Europe and Latin America).
Communicating the stories of Youth Venturers broadly and encouraging others through media partners (including a growing relationship with MTV in the U.S. and Mexico).
Using Internet avenues to recruit, help, and network Venturers, Allies, and local Partners.
Extending Youth Venture's online "Virtual Venturer" program, which allows young people to become Venturers even in communities without an established organizational presence.
Replicating the successful United Way model developed in North Central Massachusetts. After two years, almost all the schools have multiple Youth Venture teams; the area's community college gives college credit for high school Venture work; and virtually all young people in the area experience multiple Venture models. Four other local United Ways are moving to follow, hopefully followed by many others and also community foundations.
Partnering with a subject matter segment of the citizen sector (e.g., the environment) to support Youth Venture teams in its field as a means of seeding future leadership.
Building a network of stand-alone, volunteer-led local Youth Venture organizations akin to the vast majority of Scout, 4-H, and Little League groups (experiments underway in four metropolitan areas).
Breaking through with groups of schools, e.g., those served by an Ashoka Fellow or where we can get support from the leaders of a school system. This is more school system leveraged than working school by school although we welcome individual schools as long as the leadership comes from them.
Building links to youth communities (e.g., punk rock bands, debate groups) built around a common interest and that cut across institutions and geography.
Getting to scale locally: Using all avenues in a few medium-sized metropolitan areas or small provinces or states (e.g., New Hampshire).
Although the movement is far up the learning curve, all that means is that the pace of experimenting/learning is accelerating and broadening. It needs many more partners who are excited by this movement-building challenge of accelerating to scale, and who will join in experimenting, adapting, and pushing.
And it needs to communicate its alternative vision for the youth years and ultimately for a rapidly multiplying proportion of the population who have the power to change things. As the number of young leaders increases and spreads, this job becomes easier and easier, not least because such Venturers usually gain confidence once they see that, in addition to being the founders of a newspaper or a program to help new immigrant youth or a peer-to-peer counseling service, etc., they are pioneers in an historic moment.
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Related Letters to the Editors of Innovations
What are the boundaries of the three major economic classes Mr. Drayton posits: business (for profit), government and social? Where do the charitable classes of foundations, charities, religious outreach groups fit in? Does Mr. Drayton envision social organizations migrating to the business or government sectors as they mature, where appropriate? For example I remember reading about a scheme to bring electricity to the rural areas of Brazil. Might such an idea become a candidate for the business sector?
Are social enterprises essentially altruistic? If so, I think that would probably rule out patents, copyrights, business secrets and infringements. Mr. Drayton writes about the opportunities for financial institutions to make a profit in the social sector by helping social startups. I think they would insist on sound business plans and maybe some sort of collateral to reduce the lender's risk.
—Don Searles
San Diego, CA
Since an eight month period abroad observing NGO, State and Private actors I have been searching for the words to capture what I saw was missing and what I recognized, simultaneously, to be so desperately needed in the regions I traveled (Bosnia, Croatia, Azerbaijan, primarily). The class I was looking for was that of the social entrepreneur.
My first thought as I closed "Everyone a Changemaker" was of the potential value of social entreprenuer consultants. Drayton writes of the three-stage lifecycle of the citizen sector, and notes that in many areas/regions/countries the "post-breakeven" mature phase is never reached because the "citizen base is entirely inadequate". Drayton continues to note that a "broad base of citizen support" must be built ... the challenge is to "jolt the citizen sector". It seems to me, therefore, that Drayton is calling for Ashoka ambassadors-consultants, perhaps, who can inspire, catalyze and empower potential actors to drive the financial vehicles available to them.
—Amanda Leese
Washington, D.C.
Fonte: http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/innovations/data/changemakers
By Bill Drayton
This excerpt and related Letters to the Editors republished with kind permission from Innovations journal.
Rodrigo Baggio grew up in Rio de Janeiro loving computers. As he matured into an extraordinarily tall, thin man with a hugely wide smile, he became a computer consultant. However, from early on, he was one of the few in his generation who noticed—with concern—that the young people growing up in the favelas on the hills overlooking his middle-class neighborhood had no access to this digital world.
Because he has the great entrepreneur's tenacity of observation and thought as well as action, he decided he had to take on the digital divide—well before the phrase came into currency—and he has been pursuing this vision relentlessly ever since. While beginning to work toward this dream as a teenager, he learned just how motivated and capable of learning the young people in the favelas were. And also how competent the favela community was in organizing. This respect underlies the central insight that has allowed Rodrigo to have a growing multi-continental impact.
Rodrigo provides only what the community cannot: typically computers, software, and training. The community does the organizing, finding space, recruiting the students and faculty, and providing ongoing administration. The result is a uniquely economical model, and also one where, because the investment strengthens the broader community, it is self-sustaining and a foundation for other initiatives long into the future.
Rodrigo's chain of hundreds of community-based computer training schools now serves hundreds of slums across Latin America and Asia. These schools now have 700,000 graduates.
I got a sense of Rodrigo's power when he came to Washington shortly after being elected an Ashoka Fellow. Somehow he convinced the Inter-American Development Bank to give him its used (but highly valuable) computers. Somehow he convinced the Brazilian Air Force first to warehouse and then to fly these computers home. And then he somehow managed to persuade the Brazilian customs authority to allow all these computers in at a time when Brazil was trying to block computer imports.
Several years later, I got a further sense of how his mind worked, when I asked him why he was starting his work in Asia in Japan. Japan, he said, was the only large Asian source of computers where he could imagine getting people to give them to him. Therefore, as his first step, he had to demonstrate the value of his program to the Japanese in several of their own slums.
That is how entrepreneurs work. Having decided that the world must change in some important way, they simply find and build highways that lead inexorably to that result. Where others see barriers, they delight in finding solutions and in turning them into society's new and concrete patterns.
That much is easy to observe. However, there is more to it. Somehow, an unknown, young, lanky Rodrigo, the head of a new and unknown citizen organization, persuaded the managers of one after another of society's big institutions to do things they never would have imagined. He knew they were the right and logical things to do. Somehow they sensed that inner confidence and found it surprisingly persuasive.
What were they sensing? Rodrigo's words and arguments no doubt helped, but few people are willing to step out beyond the safely conventional merely on the basis of good arguments.
Rodrigo was persuasive because his listeners sensed something deeper.
What Rodrigo was proposing was not just an idea, but the central logic of his life—as it is for every great entrepreneur. He mastered and came to love the new digital world from the time he was a young boy. More important, his values from early on drove him to care about the poverty and inequality he could see on the hillsides rising behind the middle-class Rio in which he was growing up. His values and his temperament had him taking on the digital divide before the term was invented.
As a result, when Rodrigo sat across the table from the much older, powerful officials he needed to move, they were confronting not just a good idea, but deeply rooted and life-defining values: non-egoistic, kindly determination and commitment.
This values-based faith is the ultimate power of the first-class entrepreneur. It is a quality others sense and trust, whether or not they really fully grasp the idea intellectually. Even though they would not normally want to step out in front of the crowd, a quiet voice tells them to trust Rodrigo and go with his vision.
Any assessment of Rodrigo's impact that stopped with his idea, let alone his business plan, would not have penetrated to the core of his power. Our field has been impoverished by too many assessments that never get to the essence.
Nor is Rodrigo's most important impact his schools or the life-changing independence and mastery he provides his students. Consider the impact Rodrigo has on a community when he introduces his program. It is not a school created by the government or outsiders. It is a school created by, funded by, managed by, and staffed by people in the community. The students are responsible for learning and then making their way. Think how many patterns and stereotypes are crumpled by these simple and very obvious facts. The psychological impact is a bit like India emerging from 50 years of falling behind to suddenly being recognized as the new challenger at the cutting edge of the most advanced part of the world's economy.
Accompanying this disruption of old patterns of action and perception is another contribution, and I believe it is the greatest one of Rodrigo and every entrepreneur: the idea of catalyzing new local changemakers into being. Unless the entrepreneur can get someone in one community after another to step forward and seize his or her idea, the entrepreneur will never achieve the spread that is essential to his or her life success. Consequently, the entrepreneur presents his or her idea to the local community in the most enticing, safe, understandable, and user-friendly ways possible.
Of course, the entrepreneur's own life story is in itself a beacon encouraging hundreds of others to care and to take initiative. This also increases the number of local changemakers.
Moreover, when these local champions then build the teams they need to launch the idea they have adopted, they are providing not only encouragement but also training to potential next-generation local changemakers.
As the field of social entrepreneurship has grown and multiplied and wired itself together across the globe over the last 25 years, the rate of this plowing and seeding at the local level has accelerated dramatically.
As the number of leading pattern-changing social entrepreneurs has been increasing everywhere, and as the geographic reach of their ideas has been expanding ever more rapidly, the rate of plowing and seeding therefore has multiplied. As have the number of local changemakers.
This whole process is enormously contagious. As the number of large-scale entrepreneurs and local changemakers multiplies, so does the number of support institutions, all of these make the next generation of entrepreneuring and changemaking easier. Not only do people not resist, but in fact, they respond readily to this change. Who wants to be an object when they could be changemakers, when they could live lives far more creative and contributory and therefore respected and valued?
As important as Rodrigo's impact is on the digital divide and on the lives and communities he serves, I believe this second dimension of his impact is far more important—especially at this transitional moment in history.
The most important contribution any of us can make now is not to solve any particular problem, no matter how urgent energy or environment or financial regulation is. What we must do now is increase the proportion of humans who know that they can cause change. And who, like smart white blood cells coursing through society, will stop with pleasure whenever they see that something is stuck or that an opportunity is ripe to be seized. Multiplying society's capacity to adapt and change intelligently and constructively and building the necessary underlying collaborative architecture, is the world's most critical opportunity now. Patternchanging leading social entrepreneurs are the most critical single factor in catalyzing and engineering this transformation.
EVERYONE A CHANGEMAKER
The agricultural revolution produced only a small surplus, so only a small elite could move into the towns to create culture and conscious history. This pattern has persisted ever since: only a few have held the monopoly on initiative because they alone have had the social tools.
That is one reason that per capita income in the West remained flat from the fall of the Roman Empire until about 1700.
By 1700, however, a new, more open architecture was beginning to develop in northern Europe: entrepreneurial/competitive business facilitated by more tolerant, open politics. The new business model rewarded people who would step up with better ideas and implement them, igniting a relentlessly expanding cycle of entrepreneurial innovation leading to productivity gains, leading to ever more entrepreneurs, successful innovation, and productivity gains.
One result: the West broke out from 1,200 years of stagnation and soon soared past anything the world had seen before. Average per capita income rose 20 percent in the 1700s, 200 percent in the 1800s, and 740 percent in the last century.
The press reported the wars and other follies, but for the last 300 years this profound innovation in how humans organize themselves has been the defining, decisive historical force at work.
However, until 1980, this transformation bypassed the social half of the world's operations. Society taxed the new wealth created by business to pay for its roads and canals, schools and welfare systems. There was no need to change. Moreover, no monopoly, public or private, welcomes competition because it is very likely to lose. Thus, the social sector had little felt need to change and a paymaster that actively discouraged it.
Hence, the squalor of the social sector. Relative performance declining at an accelerating rate. And consequent low repute, dismal pay, and poor self-esteem and élan.
By the nineteenth century, a few modern social entrepreneurs began to appear. The anti-slavery leagues and Florence Nightingale are outstanding examples. But they remained islands.
It was only around 1980 that the ice began to crack and the social arena as a whole made the structural leap to this new entrepreneurial competitive architecture.
However, once the ice broke, catch-up change came in a rush. And it did so pretty much all across the world, the chief exceptions being areas where governments were afraid.
Because it has the advantage of not having to be the pioneer, but rather of following business, this second great transformation has been able steadily to compound productivity growth at a very fast rate. In this it resembles successful developing countries like Thailand.
Ashoka's best estimate is that the citizen sector is halving the gap between its productivity level and that of business every 10 to 12 years.
This rapidly rising productivity means that the cost of the goods and services produced by the citizen sector is falling relative to those produced by business—reversing the pricing pattern of the last centuries that led to the much-criticized "consumer" culture.
As a result, as resources flow into the citizen sector, it is growing explosively. It is generating jobs two and a half to three times as fast as business. There are now millions of modern, competing citizen groups, including big, sophisticated second-generation organizations, in each of the four main areas where the field has emerged most vigorously: Brazil-focused South America, Mexico/U.S./Canada, Europe, and South and Southeast Asia. (The field is also growing vigorously in Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, and Australia/New Zealand, but these are much smaller clusters.) All this, of course, has dramatically altered the field's élan and attractiveness.
This is where the job growth is, not to mention the most challenging, value-rooted, and increasingly even well-paid jobs. Just listen to today's "business" school students.
Given the results-based power of this transformation of the citizen sector, more and more local changemakers are emerging. Some of these learn and later expand the pool of leading social entrepreneurs. To the degree they succeed locally, they give wings to the entrepreneur whose idea they have taken up, they encourage neighbors also to become changemakers, and they cumulatively build the institutions and attitudes that make local changemaking progressively easier and more respected. All of which eases the tasks facing the next generation of primary pattern-change entrepreneurs.
This virtuous cycle catalyzed by leading social entrepreneurs and local changemakers is the chief engine now moving the world toward an "everyone a changemaker" future.
No matter how powerful this dynamic is, however, several other changes are necessary if society is to navigate this transition successfully:
Most important, society cannot significantly increase the proportion of adults who are, and know they are, changemakers and who have mastered the necessary and complex underlying social skills until it changes the way all young people live.
Although it is normal for support areas like finance to lag behind change in the operating areas they serve, the emergent citizen sector is now at significant risk unless it can quickly engineer major structural changes in both its institutional finance sector and the broad grassroots sources of support in its post-breakeven zone.
TRANSFORMING THE YOUTH YEARS
There are well over 400 Ashoka leading social entrepreneurs whose primary goal is getting society to do a far better job of helping all children and young people to learn and grow up successfully. Each has a powerful, proven, society-wide approach. (Between 49 percent and 60 percent of those elected by Ashoka have changed national policy within five years of their startup-stage election.)
However, each of these approaches is a partial answer. It is built around one insight or principle, works through one delivery system, and addresses one or two client groups. Ashoka's "mosaic" process brings all these powerful elements together, draws out the few universal principles that open major new strategic opportunities for the key decision makers in a field (e.g., in this case, those who run schools and youth programs), and then markets these principles. In effect, these mosaic collaborations promise our community the ability to entrepreneur together, an advance that produces far bigger impact than anything the sum of our solo ventures could achieve.
Roughly two-thirds of these 400-plus youth-focused Ashoka entrepreneurs have learned the same three powerful principles. Because they need human resources to implement their vision and cannot realistically get more teachers, they turn to young people. That young people are a huge, and in fact usually the only significant available human resource is the first insight. The other two follow logically: first, the unconventional assumption that young people are or can be competent; and second, the idea that one must transform youth communities (e.g., in schools) so that they become competent at initiating and organizing, and then train and reward their young people in these skills. Applying these three principles in hundreds of different ways and across the globe produces strikingly similar and powerful results: motivated students, better academic results, and young people who are experiencing being in charge. And a very different feel to those schools and programs from the moment one walks in.
Whether these social entrepreneurs discovered and developed these principles to solve their staffing problems and/or with broader educational purpose, collectively they have created a most powerful set of tools to transform the youth years. Moreover, the repeated success they have had in large-scale and highly diverse applications of these principles leaves one with enormous confidence in the power and practicability of these principles.
Ashoka's young people's mosaic also identified another principle that fits closely with this first cluster: anyone (or any group) who does not master the complex social skill of guiding his or her behavior through applied empathy will be marginalized. Since this is the enormously cruel, destructive state of perhaps 30 percent of the world's people, helping young people master empathy is proportionately important. One of the best ways of doing so is by encouraging them to build teams to contribute important changes and/or services. If their team is to succeed, they must master teamwork, which in turn rests on applied empathy.
Ashoka began developing its mosaic process and the pioneer young people's application in 1990. It was, however, only quite recently that Ashoka realized that its ultimate purpose, an "everyone a changemaker" world, is an unreachable fantasy unless the youth years become years of practicing being powerful and acquiring the required underlying skills: applied empathy, teamwork, and leadership. This realization suddenly puts the mosaic's core principles in a new light: They are as powerful as they are in large part because they are so key to unlocking this historical transition.
If young people do not grow up being powerful, causing change, and practicing these three interlocked underlying skills, they will reach adulthood with a self-definition that does not include changemaking and a social skill set that largely precludes it. Just as one must develop strong emotional foundations in the first three years of life or suffer for a lifetime, young people must master and practice these social skills and the high art of being powerful in and through society while they are young.
Consider how sophisticated the learned skill of applied empathy is: As we contemplate each action, we must comprehend how it will impact everyone at several removes around us and long into the future—and then guide our behavior accordingly. Our world now requires that skill as the ticket of admission to most simple levels of society. A dependably good person can no longer rely only on rules because they are increasingly in conflict, changing, or have yet to be developed.
Those without this complex skill will be marginalized. Moreover, mastering it is only the first step toward learning teamwork and leadership. Like ballet, these skills require extensive and real practice.
The children of elite families grow up at home and usually in school being expected to take initiative and being rewarded for doing so. This confident ability to master new situations and initiate whatever changes or actions are needed is in essence what defines the elite. Entering adult life with confidence and mastery of empathy/teamwork/leadership skills is what ultimately has given this small group control of the initiative and therefore of power and resources for millennia.
However, the other 97 percent grow up getting very little such experience with taking initiative. Adults control the classroom, work setting, and even sports and extra-curricular activities. And this situation, coupled with society's attitudes, drums home the message to this majority: "You're not competent or perhaps even responsible. Please don't try to start things; we can do it far better." Teachers, social workers and others are comfortably in control; and, in fact, most school and other youth cultures are not competent and do not train and support and respect initiative-taking. Instead, the peer group culture, not surprisingly, is resentful and in the worst cultures, quite negative.
Do these inarticulate, frustrated youth cultures bring analogous prior situations to mind? Over the last century, many other groups—including women, African Americans, those with disabilities, even colonial peoples—had to make their way from debilitating stereotypes and little prior practice in taking the initiative to becoming fully accepted, capable contributors. These groups, although very different from one another, had to travel strongly similar human and community transformation paths.
Young people are the last big group to set out on this journey. They are also different; but, in the underlying psychological and organizational transitions ahead, they can learn a great deal from the experience of these other groups.
Building on the history of these earlier movements and also on the accumulated experience of hundreds of leading social entrepreneurs working with young people, Ashoka and many partners have prototyped and are beginning to launch at scale the equivalent of a women's or older person's movement for young people.
Although this movement must ultimately change how everyone thinks about and relates to young people, it is young people and their peer communities who will have to change most and who have the most to gain. Therefore, as with all the earlier similar transformations, it is essential that they be central actors—both in actually shifting to the new pattern (because the best learning comes from action) and in championing the change (because people in any class are most likely to hear and trust peers).
This emergent movement will be far bigger than Ashoka, and once it is past the next six to ten intensely entrepreneurial years, it will require extensive operating management that is culturally inappropriate for Ashoka's "collegial/intrapreneurial" essence. Ashoka has therefore created an independent but close partner, Youth Venture. Working closely with Ashoka's young people "mosaic" team, it has the lead in major spread and emerging operating work. How to launch and build such a movement?
Ashoka, Youth Venture, and their partners are following a strategy that exercises enormously powerful jujitsu-like leverage; leverage that works on four mutually reinforcing levels.
Each of these four levels in Table 1 needs the others. But they will not snap into place together or everywhere in society instantly. This makes the job facing the pioneers much harder than it will be for their successors; and it requires a phased, several-stage strategy. The central challenge is getting to the scale where the synergies between these four levels— and across schools, neighborhoods, and regions—kick in and become irreversibly self-multiplying. Ashoka/Youth Venture, recognizing this is the heart of the matter, has been experimenting with a dozen different avenues and is gaining increasing traction. Here are some examples:
Partnering with national organizations with many chapters (e.g., the Girl Scouts) or broad reach (e.g., Youth Services America).
Co-venturing with public-spirited corporate partners, including experimenting with engaging staff, local units, and key customers as nominators, Youth Venturer Allies, and local organizers. (Most recently with Staples in Europe and Latin America).
Communicating the stories of Youth Venturers broadly and encouraging others through media partners (including a growing relationship with MTV in the U.S. and Mexico).
Using Internet avenues to recruit, help, and network Venturers, Allies, and local Partners.
Extending Youth Venture's online "Virtual Venturer" program, which allows young people to become Venturers even in communities without an established organizational presence.
Replicating the successful United Way model developed in North Central Massachusetts. After two years, almost all the schools have multiple Youth Venture teams; the area's community college gives college credit for high school Venture work; and virtually all young people in the area experience multiple Venture models. Four other local United Ways are moving to follow, hopefully followed by many others and also community foundations.
Partnering with a subject matter segment of the citizen sector (e.g., the environment) to support Youth Venture teams in its field as a means of seeding future leadership.
Building a network of stand-alone, volunteer-led local Youth Venture organizations akin to the vast majority of Scout, 4-H, and Little League groups (experiments underway in four metropolitan areas).
Breaking through with groups of schools, e.g., those served by an Ashoka Fellow or where we can get support from the leaders of a school system. This is more school system leveraged than working school by school although we welcome individual schools as long as the leadership comes from them.
Building links to youth communities (e.g., punk rock bands, debate groups) built around a common interest and that cut across institutions and geography.
Getting to scale locally: Using all avenues in a few medium-sized metropolitan areas or small provinces or states (e.g., New Hampshire).
Although the movement is far up the learning curve, all that means is that the pace of experimenting/learning is accelerating and broadening. It needs many more partners who are excited by this movement-building challenge of accelerating to scale, and who will join in experimenting, adapting, and pushing.
And it needs to communicate its alternative vision for the youth years and ultimately for a rapidly multiplying proportion of the population who have the power to change things. As the number of young leaders increases and spreads, this job becomes easier and easier, not least because such Venturers usually gain confidence once they see that, in addition to being the founders of a newspaper or a program to help new immigrant youth or a peer-to-peer counseling service, etc., they are pioneers in an historic moment.
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Related Letters to the Editors of Innovations
What are the boundaries of the three major economic classes Mr. Drayton posits: business (for profit), government and social? Where do the charitable classes of foundations, charities, religious outreach groups fit in? Does Mr. Drayton envision social organizations migrating to the business or government sectors as they mature, where appropriate? For example I remember reading about a scheme to bring electricity to the rural areas of Brazil. Might such an idea become a candidate for the business sector?
Are social enterprises essentially altruistic? If so, I think that would probably rule out patents, copyrights, business secrets and infringements. Mr. Drayton writes about the opportunities for financial institutions to make a profit in the social sector by helping social startups. I think they would insist on sound business plans and maybe some sort of collateral to reduce the lender's risk.
—Don Searles
San Diego, CA
Since an eight month period abroad observing NGO, State and Private actors I have been searching for the words to capture what I saw was missing and what I recognized, simultaneously, to be so desperately needed in the regions I traveled (Bosnia, Croatia, Azerbaijan, primarily). The class I was looking for was that of the social entrepreneur.
My first thought as I closed "Everyone a Changemaker" was of the potential value of social entreprenuer consultants. Drayton writes of the three-stage lifecycle of the citizen sector, and notes that in many areas/regions/countries the "post-breakeven" mature phase is never reached because the "citizen base is entirely inadequate". Drayton continues to note that a "broad base of citizen support" must be built ... the challenge is to "jolt the citizen sector". It seems to me, therefore, that Drayton is calling for Ashoka ambassadors-consultants, perhaps, who can inspire, catalyze and empower potential actors to drive the financial vehicles available to them.
—Amanda Leese
Washington, D.C.
Fonte: http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/innovations/data/changemakers
Social Entrepreneur: Brazilian Edition
By Julio Gonzalez, MBA '06
with Kirsten Olsen, MBA '06, and Katherine Boas, MBA '07
What does it take to be a leading social entrepreneur? Sixteen GSB students, along with Public Management Program Director Peggy Reid, Professor Rick Aubry, and travel guru Terry Cumes, MBA '04, spent spring break in Brazil finding out. The inaugural Service Learning Program trip took us to Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, and Salvador, where we visited three social entrepreneurs at the forefront of worldwide social innovation
The energetic Rodrigo Baggio formed the Committee for Democratization of Information Technology (CDI) in Rio de Janeiro in 1995 after leaving his technology career to pursue social entrepreneurship. "I began to see myself in 10 years. I was more rich, but not more happy," Baggio said. "In 1993, I had a dream. I saw young people using technology, and I was so excited about this dream that I had to make it a reality."
At nearly 800 learning centers in Brazil and almost 200 abroad, CDI provides computers and training to underserved communities in urban slums, mental health facilities, and prisons. Its mission is to use access to and training in information technology as a tool to promote citizens' rights. We visited CDI at its headquarters as well as at computer learning centers in a favela and a mental health facility.
Our second visit took us to see Fabio Rosa and his Institute for the Development of Natural and Renewable Energy (IDEAAS). We met Rosa and an IDEAAS installation crew in the rural community of Maquinae, outside Porto Alegre.
For a small fee, IDEAAS installs solar panels on the roofs of rural homes that are off the power grid. The upfront cost of each panel is significant and, as such, isn't affordable for the rural poor. So, Rosa rents the panels to customers, making it affordable for them and allowing him to recoup his investment over time. His solution also reduces or eliminates reliance on kerosene, replacing it with this clean and renewable form of energy. IDEAAS works with several partners, including local government and banks, to achieve the scale o install, service, and bill. "Electricity can provide well-being for people as well as productivity and income generation," Rosa said.
We made our last stop in Valente, four hours outside Salvador. There, in the arid northern farmlands of Bahia, we met Ismael Ferreira and learned about his 20 years of work building the Association of Small Farmers of the Municipality of Valente (APAEB). The group's stated mission is to promote "sustainable economic and social development in order to improve the living standards of small farmers in the sisal producing area." APAEB manages a sisal carpet manufacturing factory, a retail store, a goat milk and candy producer, and a cooperative bank. It also has a formidable community center with a large outdoor pool-a welcome oasis in the hot Brazilian sun. Both Ferreira and Rosa have found innovative and effective solutions to support rural life in Brazil and stem the tide of migration to urban centers of Rio and Sao Paulo, cities where the promise of prosperity and a better life is often unfulfilled.
Returning to our original question of what it takes to be a leading social entrepreneur, we synthesized our observations of the three entrepreneurs and came up with the following suggestions based on their similarities:
1. Use optimistic, concrete language.
The entrepreneurs effectively used concrete ideas to paint a picture of optimism. For example, Baggio told us an extraordinary story of how a CDI computer center helped stop a border conflict. According to Baggio, an indigenous group in southwestern Brazil used CDI training and computers to email an ultimatum to the president of Brazil: either the federal government would patrol the border for violent drug smugglers who victimized the indigenous people, or the group would take matters into its own hands by declaring war on the smugglers. The email made it to the president, who dispatched jets and other military resources to the area. Baggio's story was both a great platform for the optimism inherent in his social venture and a memorable example of the positive impact that expanded computer access can have.
2. Leverage technical ability.
Each entrepreneur leveraged his skills to deepen the impact of his organization's model and to gain credibility. For example, Rosa is an agronomist by training, which helps him deal with electricity dilemmas in the outlying agricultural areas in Brazil. His technical background also affords him legitimacy when dealing with utility companies, bureaucrats, and his rural customers. Similarly, Baggio built his own computer services firm before transitioning to social entrepreneurship. The network he formed in his private-sector days remains an important part of the support base for CDI today.
3. Foster quality recruitment.Any organization that fails to recruit top-quality people will have a tough time meeting its goals. All three of the social entrepreneurs we visited had effectively recruited personnel who helped them meet their needs. Yet they had no universal template for human talent except energy and commitment. For CDI, talent meant a tech-savvy deputy with strong English and interpersonal skills. For IDEAAS, it meant a handyman lawyer who enjoyed installing solar panels as much as negotiating legal contracts (and singing Bob Dylan).
4. Remember that all social entrepreneurship is local.Local alliances with government, nongovernmental organizations, and community groups were a key facet of success for the entrepreneurs we visited. CDI had to work with its local partners to get access to space for its computers. IDEAAS invited the mayor of Maquinae to join our visit because the mayor's office can help the organization as it deals with larger bureaucracies. And according to APAEB, Ismael Ferreira got so tired with the family oligarchy governing the city of Valente that he chose to run for mayor himself.
5. Develop humility and patience.
Leaders who are humble and patient have an easier time building interpersonal confidence with key allies. What's more, in organizations where there may not be money to reward high-performing staff, leaders must draw on these traits to share the spotlight and engender teamwork.
6. Create a "movement culture."
Wiring a home's battery or bundling sisal creates social impact only as part of a larger effort. That's why each social entrepreneur we visited found it important to build a social movement culture in his organization. Without that culture, many of the perfunctory tasks that are critical to achieving change would be done poorly, if at all. Each of the entrepreneurs wanted participants to be motivated not by money, but by the mutually reinforcing camaraderie that comes with being part of something socially meaningful.
At APAEB, for instance, we observed a meeting of about 200 members. It's hard to imagine such a strong showing without some traces of a movement culture. "Have your head in the clouds, but your feet on the ground" is Ferreira's explanation for how APAEB accomplishes so much with so little.
Fonte: http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/PMP/about/feature_article.html
with Kirsten Olsen, MBA '06, and Katherine Boas, MBA '07
What does it take to be a leading social entrepreneur? Sixteen GSB students, along with Public Management Program Director Peggy Reid, Professor Rick Aubry, and travel guru Terry Cumes, MBA '04, spent spring break in Brazil finding out. The inaugural Service Learning Program trip took us to Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, and Salvador, where we visited three social entrepreneurs at the forefront of worldwide social innovation
The energetic Rodrigo Baggio formed the Committee for Democratization of Information Technology (CDI) in Rio de Janeiro in 1995 after leaving his technology career to pursue social entrepreneurship. "I began to see myself in 10 years. I was more rich, but not more happy," Baggio said. "In 1993, I had a dream. I saw young people using technology, and I was so excited about this dream that I had to make it a reality."
At nearly 800 learning centers in Brazil and almost 200 abroad, CDI provides computers and training to underserved communities in urban slums, mental health facilities, and prisons. Its mission is to use access to and training in information technology as a tool to promote citizens' rights. We visited CDI at its headquarters as well as at computer learning centers in a favela and a mental health facility.
Our second visit took us to see Fabio Rosa and his Institute for the Development of Natural and Renewable Energy (IDEAAS). We met Rosa and an IDEAAS installation crew in the rural community of Maquinae, outside Porto Alegre.
For a small fee, IDEAAS installs solar panels on the roofs of rural homes that are off the power grid. The upfront cost of each panel is significant and, as such, isn't affordable for the rural poor. So, Rosa rents the panels to customers, making it affordable for them and allowing him to recoup his investment over time. His solution also reduces or eliminates reliance on kerosene, replacing it with this clean and renewable form of energy. IDEAAS works with several partners, including local government and banks, to achieve the scale o install, service, and bill. "Electricity can provide well-being for people as well as productivity and income generation," Rosa said.
We made our last stop in Valente, four hours outside Salvador. There, in the arid northern farmlands of Bahia, we met Ismael Ferreira and learned about his 20 years of work building the Association of Small Farmers of the Municipality of Valente (APAEB). The group's stated mission is to promote "sustainable economic and social development in order to improve the living standards of small farmers in the sisal producing area." APAEB manages a sisal carpet manufacturing factory, a retail store, a goat milk and candy producer, and a cooperative bank. It also has a formidable community center with a large outdoor pool-a welcome oasis in the hot Brazilian sun. Both Ferreira and Rosa have found innovative and effective solutions to support rural life in Brazil and stem the tide of migration to urban centers of Rio and Sao Paulo, cities where the promise of prosperity and a better life is often unfulfilled.
Returning to our original question of what it takes to be a leading social entrepreneur, we synthesized our observations of the three entrepreneurs and came up with the following suggestions based on their similarities:
1. Use optimistic, concrete language.
The entrepreneurs effectively used concrete ideas to paint a picture of optimism. For example, Baggio told us an extraordinary story of how a CDI computer center helped stop a border conflict. According to Baggio, an indigenous group in southwestern Brazil used CDI training and computers to email an ultimatum to the president of Brazil: either the federal government would patrol the border for violent drug smugglers who victimized the indigenous people, or the group would take matters into its own hands by declaring war on the smugglers. The email made it to the president, who dispatched jets and other military resources to the area. Baggio's story was both a great platform for the optimism inherent in his social venture and a memorable example of the positive impact that expanded computer access can have.
2. Leverage technical ability.
Each entrepreneur leveraged his skills to deepen the impact of his organization's model and to gain credibility. For example, Rosa is an agronomist by training, which helps him deal with electricity dilemmas in the outlying agricultural areas in Brazil. His technical background also affords him legitimacy when dealing with utility companies, bureaucrats, and his rural customers. Similarly, Baggio built his own computer services firm before transitioning to social entrepreneurship. The network he formed in his private-sector days remains an important part of the support base for CDI today.
3. Foster quality recruitment.Any organization that fails to recruit top-quality people will have a tough time meeting its goals. All three of the social entrepreneurs we visited had effectively recruited personnel who helped them meet their needs. Yet they had no universal template for human talent except energy and commitment. For CDI, talent meant a tech-savvy deputy with strong English and interpersonal skills. For IDEAAS, it meant a handyman lawyer who enjoyed installing solar panels as much as negotiating legal contracts (and singing Bob Dylan).
4. Remember that all social entrepreneurship is local.Local alliances with government, nongovernmental organizations, and community groups were a key facet of success for the entrepreneurs we visited. CDI had to work with its local partners to get access to space for its computers. IDEAAS invited the mayor of Maquinae to join our visit because the mayor's office can help the organization as it deals with larger bureaucracies. And according to APAEB, Ismael Ferreira got so tired with the family oligarchy governing the city of Valente that he chose to run for mayor himself.
5. Develop humility and patience.
Leaders who are humble and patient have an easier time building interpersonal confidence with key allies. What's more, in organizations where there may not be money to reward high-performing staff, leaders must draw on these traits to share the spotlight and engender teamwork.
6. Create a "movement culture."
Wiring a home's battery or bundling sisal creates social impact only as part of a larger effort. That's why each social entrepreneur we visited found it important to build a social movement culture in his organization. Without that culture, many of the perfunctory tasks that are critical to achieving change would be done poorly, if at all. Each of the entrepreneurs wanted participants to be motivated not by money, but by the mutually reinforcing camaraderie that comes with being part of something socially meaningful.
At APAEB, for instance, we observed a meeting of about 200 members. It's hard to imagine such a strong showing without some traces of a movement culture. "Have your head in the clouds, but your feet on the ground" is Ferreira's explanation for how APAEB accomplishes so much with so little.
Fonte: http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/PMP/about/feature_article.html
Bill Drayton - Ashoka - Rodrigo Baggio
Filed Under: Brazil Rodrigo Baggio Bill Drayton Ashoka CDI
In his third interview with Global X, the founder of Ashoka talks about Rodrigo Baggio, who was elected an Ashoka Fellow when he was still in his 20s. Bill Drayton remembers him as being "very tall and very thin," but also remembers that he spent a lot of time in the favellas of Rio de Janeiro, where he noticed the reality of the digital divide (before the phrase was even invented).
He also realized that the children and the community were perfectly capable of building schools themselves. Rodrigo Baggio launched the Committee for Democracy in Information Technology (CDI), a model now replicated in 15 countries around the world.
Bill Drayton remembers the second time they met. "His English was still very spotty," but he did manage to get free computers, to have them shipped for free to Brazil, where they went seamlessly through customs. Every stage of this process is quite implausible, except for the fact that Rodrigo Baggio is a true entrepreneur.
"He was able to convince all these parties not through words --the transaction took place at a much deeper level" explains Bill Drayton. It's all about trust and ethical fiber.
Fonte: http://app26.sixfeetup.com:8080/SocialEdge/blogs/global-x/archive/2008/12/09/bill-drayton-ashoka-rodrigo-baggio
In his third interview with Global X, the founder of Ashoka talks about Rodrigo Baggio, who was elected an Ashoka Fellow when he was still in his 20s. Bill Drayton remembers him as being "very tall and very thin," but also remembers that he spent a lot of time in the favellas of Rio de Janeiro, where he noticed the reality of the digital divide (before the phrase was even invented).
He also realized that the children and the community were perfectly capable of building schools themselves. Rodrigo Baggio launched the Committee for Democracy in Information Technology (CDI), a model now replicated in 15 countries around the world.
Bill Drayton remembers the second time they met. "His English was still very spotty," but he did manage to get free computers, to have them shipped for free to Brazil, where they went seamlessly through customs. Every stage of this process is quite implausible, except for the fact that Rodrigo Baggio is a true entrepreneur.
"He was able to convince all these parties not through words --the transaction took place at a much deeper level" explains Bill Drayton. It's all about trust and ethical fiber.
Fonte: http://app26.sixfeetup.com:8080/SocialEdge/blogs/global-x/archive/2008/12/09/bill-drayton-ashoka-rodrigo-baggio
"Computers for Everyone!" Social Entrepreneur Rodrigo Baggio from Brazil
Every kid today is familiar with internet terms like chatting, surfing and blogs. Really every child? 79 percent of the people on the world are cut off technology which is taken for granted in the developed world.
Brazilian Rodrigo Baggio describes the situation as digital apartheid. While aid organisations in Brazil were concentrating on providing food and clothing to poor people, Baggio recognised another necessity: access to the internet and computer skills.
Many called him crazy when he set up his "Committee for the democratisation of information technology" in 1995. The organisation grew into what it is today; a multinational network with more than 800 computer schools in seven Latin American countries.
Global 3000 shows the effect the organisation is having in Baggio's home city Rio de Janeiro.
Today is Sunday and we're visiting Rodrigo Baggio and his son Filipe in their home. Filipe is a little shy in front of the camera, but at 9 years old he's a wizard when it comes to computers. The father Rodrigo states: "I'm confident about Filipe's future because he's surrounded by technology. He's growing up with the Internet and he's got a computer at school. In our free time we like doing different things together."
Like Filipe, Greicielen is 9 years old and has five siblings. The only screen in her crowded home is the flickering television. Her brothers are about to go to school but Greicielen is not going today; her teacher is busy doing something else, she tells us. Greicielen’s mother Joselina is a cleaner and single parent. She finds it reassuring that her daughter has a computer school to visit, and doesn't have to spend her days on the street. "I'm glad all my children like going to school and learn about computers. Some children don't like it - but my kids love school. I support that. My eldest daughter spent a long time going to computer class, now she's being taught a qualification. She's very good and I'm not worried about her."
Joselina's children don't know that the computer school they visit is Rodrigo's idea. The school is just one of over 700 schools of this type in Brazil. Rodrigo has a special relationship with this school at the foot of Providencia slum. It's one of the oldest and was founded 10 years ago. The children are explaining to Rodrigo what computers are useful for; you just have to make a few clicks and you have access to a world of information.
The children here don't only get training in computer skills; they're also taught how to broaden their minds and raise their self-esteem – all part of the schools' concept. There's also time for play, otherwise the kids would loose interest. One challenge the teachers have to cope is the failure of the state schools to sufficently educate Brazil's population; many of the children here cannot read or write. The hard work put in by the school's teachers has inspired Greicielen to become an educator herself one day.
Rodrigo, a man from a comfortable background, is aware the project's success depends on the teachers: it's important they share the same social circumstances as their pupils. Mario Chagas, one of the coordinators, is aware of the importance of his job: "These children live in a violent society that they deal with every day. But they don't know with who they can talk about these things. This school is an instrument to overcome that speechlessness." And Rodrigo Baggio adds: "Every couple of weeks we hear stories about people who have been motivated by our schools and who have moved on to other things. For example, there was one group of people who came together and cleaned up the river in their community. They founded an initiative and created a recycling system for garbage. That's proof that people can feel motivated to change things in their lives instead of descending into poverty and relying on help from the state or God."
In the juvenile prison on Rio de Janeiro's outskirts, the kids have maybe one chance left to succeed in life. Most of the boys here have committed robbery or dealt in illegal drugs. There's a computer class every day and today it's taught by Wanderson who's been teaching for a year. The boys respect him because he's one of their own. He began dealing drugs when he was just 12 years old. Many of his friends from that time are no longer alive today. Wanderson is 19 years old and is trying to stay on the straight-and-narrow – a difficult task. He says: "When new kids arrive here they often say to me: 'You've done time and now you're a teacher. How did you do it?' We talk a lot together and I tell them they have to pull themselves together and wake up. I believe that everyone has choices to make in life." The school allowed Wanderson to make the choice of becoming an educator.
We meet up again with Rodrigo in this house in the city centre. It's the heart of the computer schools project. C-D-I stands for Committee to Democratize Information Technology. Rodrigo is in his element, eager to drive his project forward and make it a success. He wants more donors so he can set up new regional offices that will go on to found new computer schools. "The model has been so designed that it constantly reproduces itself," the Social Entrepreneur explains. "Our vision is to access new regions such as the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa in order to function even more effectively. 79 percent of the population of our planet is prevented from accessing technical development. Only 1.4 billion people can go online. That situation has to change."
And just how difficult bridging the digital divide will be can be seen in Rio's streets where only a few hundred meters separate two very different worlds
Fonte: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4163161,00.html
Brazilian Rodrigo Baggio describes the situation as digital apartheid. While aid organisations in Brazil were concentrating on providing food and clothing to poor people, Baggio recognised another necessity: access to the internet and computer skills.
Many called him crazy when he set up his "Committee for the democratisation of information technology" in 1995. The organisation grew into what it is today; a multinational network with more than 800 computer schools in seven Latin American countries.
Global 3000 shows the effect the organisation is having in Baggio's home city Rio de Janeiro.
Today is Sunday and we're visiting Rodrigo Baggio and his son Filipe in their home. Filipe is a little shy in front of the camera, but at 9 years old he's a wizard when it comes to computers. The father Rodrigo states: "I'm confident about Filipe's future because he's surrounded by technology. He's growing up with the Internet and he's got a computer at school. In our free time we like doing different things together."
Like Filipe, Greicielen is 9 years old and has five siblings. The only screen in her crowded home is the flickering television. Her brothers are about to go to school but Greicielen is not going today; her teacher is busy doing something else, she tells us. Greicielen’s mother Joselina is a cleaner and single parent. She finds it reassuring that her daughter has a computer school to visit, and doesn't have to spend her days on the street. "I'm glad all my children like going to school and learn about computers. Some children don't like it - but my kids love school. I support that. My eldest daughter spent a long time going to computer class, now she's being taught a qualification. She's very good and I'm not worried about her."
Joselina's children don't know that the computer school they visit is Rodrigo's idea. The school is just one of over 700 schools of this type in Brazil. Rodrigo has a special relationship with this school at the foot of Providencia slum. It's one of the oldest and was founded 10 years ago. The children are explaining to Rodrigo what computers are useful for; you just have to make a few clicks and you have access to a world of information.
The children here don't only get training in computer skills; they're also taught how to broaden their minds and raise their self-esteem – all part of the schools' concept. There's also time for play, otherwise the kids would loose interest. One challenge the teachers have to cope is the failure of the state schools to sufficently educate Brazil's population; many of the children here cannot read or write. The hard work put in by the school's teachers has inspired Greicielen to become an educator herself one day.
Rodrigo, a man from a comfortable background, is aware the project's success depends on the teachers: it's important they share the same social circumstances as their pupils. Mario Chagas, one of the coordinators, is aware of the importance of his job: "These children live in a violent society that they deal with every day. But they don't know with who they can talk about these things. This school is an instrument to overcome that speechlessness." And Rodrigo Baggio adds: "Every couple of weeks we hear stories about people who have been motivated by our schools and who have moved on to other things. For example, there was one group of people who came together and cleaned up the river in their community. They founded an initiative and created a recycling system for garbage. That's proof that people can feel motivated to change things in their lives instead of descending into poverty and relying on help from the state or God."
In the juvenile prison on Rio de Janeiro's outskirts, the kids have maybe one chance left to succeed in life. Most of the boys here have committed robbery or dealt in illegal drugs. There's a computer class every day and today it's taught by Wanderson who's been teaching for a year. The boys respect him because he's one of their own. He began dealing drugs when he was just 12 years old. Many of his friends from that time are no longer alive today. Wanderson is 19 years old and is trying to stay on the straight-and-narrow – a difficult task. He says: "When new kids arrive here they often say to me: 'You've done time and now you're a teacher. How did you do it?' We talk a lot together and I tell them they have to pull themselves together and wake up. I believe that everyone has choices to make in life." The school allowed Wanderson to make the choice of becoming an educator.
We meet up again with Rodrigo in this house in the city centre. It's the heart of the computer schools project. C-D-I stands for Committee to Democratize Information Technology. Rodrigo is in his element, eager to drive his project forward and make it a success. He wants more donors so he can set up new regional offices that will go on to found new computer schools. "The model has been so designed that it constantly reproduces itself," the Social Entrepreneur explains. "Our vision is to access new regions such as the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa in order to function even more effectively. 79 percent of the population of our planet is prevented from accessing technical development. Only 1.4 billion people can go online. That situation has to change."
And just how difficult bridging the digital divide will be can be seen in Rio's streets where only a few hundred meters separate two very different worlds
Fonte: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4163161,00.html
For Brazil's Poor, a Digital Deliverance?
JUNE 21, 2006
LATIN BEAT
By Geri Smith
The Committee for Democracy in Information Technology helps the unempowered use computers to reboot themselves and their communities
Ronaldo Monteiro was halfway through a 13-year prison sentence for kidnapping when his life took a turn for the better. That's when a nonprofit group delivered a bunch of personal computers to the rough Lemos Brito prison in Rio de Janeiro and taught inmates how to use them. Within months, Monteiro had become an instructor, and then he helped start a prison recycling program that today sells paper products, from calendars to notebooks, whose proceeds help support inmates' families.
Freed two years ago, Monteiro has just launched his own nonprofit group that provides seed capital and business advice to 25 former prisoners starting their own businesses, from small garment factories to ship soldering outfits. "The computer project changed my life," says Monteiro. "It taught me skills that empowered me, and that led me to think about doing things to help others."
The prison computer-education school is just one of 951 such centers created in Brazil and eight other countries over the past 11 years by the Committee for Democracy in Information Technology (CDI), a Rio de Janeiro-based nonprofit group. But these are not run-of-the-mill "telecenters" that offer rudimentary training and an Internet connection. Their name—Information Technology and Citizens Rights Schools—suggests a broader purpose. According to Rodrigo Baggio, the 37-year-old tech whiz who created the program in 1995, the idea is to teach the underprivileged basic concepts of self-esteem, citizenship, and their rights as individuals—essential building blocks for a fairer society.
After sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil has the worst distribution of wealth in the world. "People don't die of hunger in our cities—they die from lack of opportunities, and that leads them into a life of crime, violence, drug trafficking, and death," says Baggio. "People need more than just food. They also want fun, art, and technology in their lives."
CORPORATE BACKING. Call it Digital Democracy or Digital Inclusion. It means spreading technology to the masses so they will not be left behind as the rest of the world becomes interconnected. In the U.S., two-thirds of the population is connected to the Internet, but in Latin America as a whole the rate is a low 15%.
"There is a kind of 'digital apartheid' in developing countries that must be overcome so they can progress, not just economically but socially," Baggio says.
CDI has won international recognition for its unique approach of combining digital and civic education. With backing from such multinationals as Microsoft (MSFT ) and AOL (TWX ) and from Ashoka, a Virginia-based organization that encourages grass-roots social entrepreneurship worldwide, CDI has trained 600,000 underprivileged youths in computer and Internet skills. It does this with an annual budget of about $5 million in cash and donated services.
Baggio opened the first center in a Rio de Janeiro hillside shantytown in 1995, in space provided by a church and with computers donated by a retail chain. He was soon bombarded by requests to open centers throughout the country. Although most equipment is donated, all the centers are self-sustaining, charging students $5 to $10 a month for a three-month course. Students who cannot afford to pay are expected to contribute by helping out around the center. For many, the school is an oasis from the violence of the urban slums that are dominated by gun-wielding drug dealers. And the instructors, as well as the computer-repair specialists trained by the centers, serve as positive role models for kids.
EMPOWERING COMMUNITIES. I visited one center, in Morro da Providencia, a century-old slum in Rio de Janeiro where gun battles between police and traffickers recently shut down schools and businesses for two weeks. There, students ages 9 to 17 work on 15 computers donated by British Petroleum (BP ). They're learning how to use the Internet for their schoolwork, but embedded in the lesson plans are exercises in building self-esteem and strengthening the community. "We're trying to show students that they have other options in life besides working for drug traffickers," says Mario Chagas, 48, the center's director.
Young people are not the only students. In some centers, the physically and mentally disabled, prostitutes, and housemaids learn skills that may enable them to open home-based businesses. But CDI aims to improve not just individual lives but that of the community as a whole. Slum residents are encouraged to discuss possible solutions for everything that's plaguing their neighborhoods. In one shantytown, where a trash-choked river frequently flooded streets, students printed and distributed flyers explaining to residents why it was important to refrain from throwing garbage into the waterway. After four months, flooding ceased to be a problem.
In another community, residents were frustrated when the city moved a bus stop far away, requiring residents to take an extra bus to get to work. Students in a CDI class calculated how much the extra bus fare affected family budgets and presented the information in spreadsheet format to city officials, who promptly moved the bus stop back to its original location. "These are molecular-sized revolutions that truly empower people, converting them into people capable of using technology and ideas to achieve change," says Baggio.
FREE LAPTOPS FOR KIDS. There are other computer initiatives percolating in Brazil, whose 188 million inhabitants make it Latin America's most populous country. It's an interesting testing ground for computer and Internet use because Brazilians are eager technology adopters. Brazil has 22 million computers in use and boasts one of the highest numbers of Internet users in the world—around 26 million. It was the first country to introduce electronic voting, and it long has had one of the world's most computerized banking systems.
Yet, half of all Brazilians are poor, with little hope of ever learning to use a computer—much less owning one. The Brazilian government plans to install 6,000 community computer telecenters around the country by 2007. But that won't train enough of the workforce in computer use to make the country competitive.
So Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has agreed to distribute 1 million low-cost laptops to poor schoolchildren starting next year. Brazil will be one of the pioneer countries in a program called One Laptop Per Child, created by MIT's Media Lab (see BusinessWeek.com, 12/20/05, "Quanta's $100 Laptop Challenge"). It aims to hand out millions of $100 laptops equipped with open-source software to children around the world as part of the effort to bridge the digital divide between rich and poor countries. By allowing children to take the laptops home from school, the hope is that parents born before the digital age began will learn to use them as well.
INDIA, CHINA NEXT. The laptops, now in the final stages of design, will be distributed for free by governments starting next year, first in Nigeria and Brazil, and then in Argentina, Thailand, and perhaps Egypt (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/4/05, "Help for Info Age Have-Nots"). Ultimately, says Walter Bender, One Laptop Per Child's president, the idea is to reach India and China, home to one-third of the world's children.
Granted, the 1 million laptops to be distributed initially in Brazil will barely scratch the surface: Brazil has 55 million school-age children. But it's an important first step. "It's inevitable that kids are going to have access to modern communications and to laptops eventually," says Bender. "We just want to make it happen faster, so that we don't lose another generation of kids in the developing world."
Already, the future looks clearer to Wanderley Canhedo, 13, a student at the CDI center in the Morro da Providencia slum, whose father is a bartender. Wanderley aspires to join the Brazilian Navy to use his new computer skills as a communications officer. "That's my dream now," he says, smiling.
With around half of Latin America's 560 million people living below the poverty line, dreams are in short supply. "Digital inclusion" is a necessary first step to equip young Latin Americans with the knowledge, skills, and self-confidence they need to succeed in the global workplace.
Fonte: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jun2006/nf20060621_8327.htm
LATIN BEAT
By Geri Smith
The Committee for Democracy in Information Technology helps the unempowered use computers to reboot themselves and their communities
Ronaldo Monteiro was halfway through a 13-year prison sentence for kidnapping when his life took a turn for the better. That's when a nonprofit group delivered a bunch of personal computers to the rough Lemos Brito prison in Rio de Janeiro and taught inmates how to use them. Within months, Monteiro had become an instructor, and then he helped start a prison recycling program that today sells paper products, from calendars to notebooks, whose proceeds help support inmates' families.
Freed two years ago, Monteiro has just launched his own nonprofit group that provides seed capital and business advice to 25 former prisoners starting their own businesses, from small garment factories to ship soldering outfits. "The computer project changed my life," says Monteiro. "It taught me skills that empowered me, and that led me to think about doing things to help others."
The prison computer-education school is just one of 951 such centers created in Brazil and eight other countries over the past 11 years by the Committee for Democracy in Information Technology (CDI), a Rio de Janeiro-based nonprofit group. But these are not run-of-the-mill "telecenters" that offer rudimentary training and an Internet connection. Their name—Information Technology and Citizens Rights Schools—suggests a broader purpose. According to Rodrigo Baggio, the 37-year-old tech whiz who created the program in 1995, the idea is to teach the underprivileged basic concepts of self-esteem, citizenship, and their rights as individuals—essential building blocks for a fairer society.
After sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil has the worst distribution of wealth in the world. "People don't die of hunger in our cities—they die from lack of opportunities, and that leads them into a life of crime, violence, drug trafficking, and death," says Baggio. "People need more than just food. They also want fun, art, and technology in their lives."
CORPORATE BACKING. Call it Digital Democracy or Digital Inclusion. It means spreading technology to the masses so they will not be left behind as the rest of the world becomes interconnected. In the U.S., two-thirds of the population is connected to the Internet, but in Latin America as a whole the rate is a low 15%.
"There is a kind of 'digital apartheid' in developing countries that must be overcome so they can progress, not just economically but socially," Baggio says.
CDI has won international recognition for its unique approach of combining digital and civic education. With backing from such multinationals as Microsoft (MSFT ) and AOL (TWX ) and from Ashoka, a Virginia-based organization that encourages grass-roots social entrepreneurship worldwide, CDI has trained 600,000 underprivileged youths in computer and Internet skills. It does this with an annual budget of about $5 million in cash and donated services.
Baggio opened the first center in a Rio de Janeiro hillside shantytown in 1995, in space provided by a church and with computers donated by a retail chain. He was soon bombarded by requests to open centers throughout the country. Although most equipment is donated, all the centers are self-sustaining, charging students $5 to $10 a month for a three-month course. Students who cannot afford to pay are expected to contribute by helping out around the center. For many, the school is an oasis from the violence of the urban slums that are dominated by gun-wielding drug dealers. And the instructors, as well as the computer-repair specialists trained by the centers, serve as positive role models for kids.
EMPOWERING COMMUNITIES. I visited one center, in Morro da Providencia, a century-old slum in Rio de Janeiro where gun battles between police and traffickers recently shut down schools and businesses for two weeks. There, students ages 9 to 17 work on 15 computers donated by British Petroleum (BP ). They're learning how to use the Internet for their schoolwork, but embedded in the lesson plans are exercises in building self-esteem and strengthening the community. "We're trying to show students that they have other options in life besides working for drug traffickers," says Mario Chagas, 48, the center's director.
Young people are not the only students. In some centers, the physically and mentally disabled, prostitutes, and housemaids learn skills that may enable them to open home-based businesses. But CDI aims to improve not just individual lives but that of the community as a whole. Slum residents are encouraged to discuss possible solutions for everything that's plaguing their neighborhoods. In one shantytown, where a trash-choked river frequently flooded streets, students printed and distributed flyers explaining to residents why it was important to refrain from throwing garbage into the waterway. After four months, flooding ceased to be a problem.
In another community, residents were frustrated when the city moved a bus stop far away, requiring residents to take an extra bus to get to work. Students in a CDI class calculated how much the extra bus fare affected family budgets and presented the information in spreadsheet format to city officials, who promptly moved the bus stop back to its original location. "These are molecular-sized revolutions that truly empower people, converting them into people capable of using technology and ideas to achieve change," says Baggio.
FREE LAPTOPS FOR KIDS. There are other computer initiatives percolating in Brazil, whose 188 million inhabitants make it Latin America's most populous country. It's an interesting testing ground for computer and Internet use because Brazilians are eager technology adopters. Brazil has 22 million computers in use and boasts one of the highest numbers of Internet users in the world—around 26 million. It was the first country to introduce electronic voting, and it long has had one of the world's most computerized banking systems.
Yet, half of all Brazilians are poor, with little hope of ever learning to use a computer—much less owning one. The Brazilian government plans to install 6,000 community computer telecenters around the country by 2007. But that won't train enough of the workforce in computer use to make the country competitive.
So Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has agreed to distribute 1 million low-cost laptops to poor schoolchildren starting next year. Brazil will be one of the pioneer countries in a program called One Laptop Per Child, created by MIT's Media Lab (see BusinessWeek.com, 12/20/05, "Quanta's $100 Laptop Challenge"). It aims to hand out millions of $100 laptops equipped with open-source software to children around the world as part of the effort to bridge the digital divide between rich and poor countries. By allowing children to take the laptops home from school, the hope is that parents born before the digital age began will learn to use them as well.
INDIA, CHINA NEXT. The laptops, now in the final stages of design, will be distributed for free by governments starting next year, first in Nigeria and Brazil, and then in Argentina, Thailand, and perhaps Egypt (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/4/05, "Help for Info Age Have-Nots"). Ultimately, says Walter Bender, One Laptop Per Child's president, the idea is to reach India and China, home to one-third of the world's children.
Granted, the 1 million laptops to be distributed initially in Brazil will barely scratch the surface: Brazil has 55 million school-age children. But it's an important first step. "It's inevitable that kids are going to have access to modern communications and to laptops eventually," says Bender. "We just want to make it happen faster, so that we don't lose another generation of kids in the developing world."
Already, the future looks clearer to Wanderley Canhedo, 13, a student at the CDI center in the Morro da Providencia slum, whose father is a bartender. Wanderley aspires to join the Brazilian Navy to use his new computer skills as a communications officer. "That's my dream now," he says, smiling.
With around half of Latin America's 560 million people living below the poverty line, dreams are in short supply. "Digital inclusion" is a necessary first step to equip young Latin Americans with the knowledge, skills, and self-confidence they need to succeed in the global workplace.
Fonte: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jun2006/nf20060621_8327.htm
Rodrigo Baggio's White Paper
All the 2006 Principal Voices are submitting a White Paper to the Web site, explaining their views at length.
Rodrigo Baggio, founder of the Committee for Democracy in Information Technology, discusses the way his network of computer schools has helped many thousands of disadvantaged young Brazilians gain skills and jobs -- as well as self-respect.
Some time around the turn of the millennium, Marcos Antonio Nascimento da Silva's life took a bad turn. Out of work and out of luck, he drifted into the world of petty crime on the streets of Sao Paulo.
He was just 17 years old when he was locked away in a home for juvenile offenders. Several hundred kilometers away, in Rio de Janeiro, Altamiro Serra and Ronaldo Monteiro - both in their late 20s and going nowhere fast - also ended up behind bars. The tales of these three men are sad but only too familiar.
And it's not just Brazil. By reinventing modernity, globalization undeniably left a trail of contradictions.
No one doubts that we have been blessed with fabulous new technologies, but often these innovations come tainted by frustrations and dreams gone sour. On the one hand, we have seen soaring productivity, breathtaking instantaneousness, and the advantages of living in a world without borders.
On the other hand there is ruthless competition, frantic consumerism, greater waste and a predatory scramble for resources. Worse, social inequality has grown, and so has crime.
The Committee for Democracy of Information Technology (CDI), a Brazilian NGO dedicated to those with low incomes or special needs, was born at this exact moment. This was in the mid 90s, the beginnings of the "knowledge society," when specialized skills were the order of the day.
Technology and communications - globalization's key tools - became the guide and measure of virtually all sectors of the economy and human activity. It was also the beginning of a brand new kind of exclusion: digital exclusion. It's not hard to guess on which side of the digital divide the Marcoses, the Altamiros, and the Ronaldos of the world fell.
CDI decided to turn the tables by pioneering a new educational model anchored in the notion that computer technology skills are essential to creating fully enfranchised citizens.
Digital inclusion means much more than access to computers and the Internet. In 965 CDI schools operating in 19 Brazilian states and eight other countries, students are taught how to use information technology to enhance their abilities to think critically and creatively, to analyze political and social reality, and to generate jobs and business opportunities.
Above all, CDI offers students and teachers alike the opportunity to work together to become protagonists in the collective effort of building a more just and egalitarian society.
Recent studies show how difficult digital inclusion will be. In Brazil alone, fewer than 16% of households own computers and a mere 12.2% of them have access to the Internet. The vast majority of computer technology is concentrated in just three regions (the federal capital, the south, and southeast) according to a 2004 study of 183 nations by the International Telecommunications Union.
Brazil placed a lowly 65th in Internet connectivity, trailing Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica and Mexico. The high cost of personal computers, poor computer training in the classroom and inconsistent public policies are the main reasons why middle and lower income Brazilians are still outsiders in the modern information society.
Since being formed, CDI has honed its commitment to helping the least favored. And this is where the story of Marcos, Altamiro and Ronaldo picks up again.
While still serving time, all three of them signed up for classes at CDI's schools behind bars and never looked back. When they were finally released they had mastered much more than the secrets of computers:they had come to appreciate the meaning of self esteem and self determination.
Today, Marcos works for a major company in Brazil. Altamiro coordinates a CDI school, while Ronaldo runs social projects aimed at turning underprivileged residents of the neglected outskirts of Rio into full-fledged democratic citizens.
CDI has trained more than half a million people in everything from community education to protecting the environment to organizing cooperatives. Each one of these small gestures is rooted in something much larger: the realization that technology can be harnessed as a powerful tool for social change and serve as a bridge between the real and virtual worlds. These worlds may not be so distant after all.
Fonte: http://www.principalvoices.com/2006/economy/rodrigo.baggio.white.paper.html
Rodrigo Baggio, founder of the Committee for Democracy in Information Technology, discusses the way his network of computer schools has helped many thousands of disadvantaged young Brazilians gain skills and jobs -- as well as self-respect.
Some time around the turn of the millennium, Marcos Antonio Nascimento da Silva's life took a bad turn. Out of work and out of luck, he drifted into the world of petty crime on the streets of Sao Paulo.
He was just 17 years old when he was locked away in a home for juvenile offenders. Several hundred kilometers away, in Rio de Janeiro, Altamiro Serra and Ronaldo Monteiro - both in their late 20s and going nowhere fast - also ended up behind bars. The tales of these three men are sad but only too familiar.
And it's not just Brazil. By reinventing modernity, globalization undeniably left a trail of contradictions.
No one doubts that we have been blessed with fabulous new technologies, but often these innovations come tainted by frustrations and dreams gone sour. On the one hand, we have seen soaring productivity, breathtaking instantaneousness, and the advantages of living in a world without borders.
On the other hand there is ruthless competition, frantic consumerism, greater waste and a predatory scramble for resources. Worse, social inequality has grown, and so has crime.
The Committee for Democracy of Information Technology (CDI), a Brazilian NGO dedicated to those with low incomes or special needs, was born at this exact moment. This was in the mid 90s, the beginnings of the "knowledge society," when specialized skills were the order of the day.
Technology and communications - globalization's key tools - became the guide and measure of virtually all sectors of the economy and human activity. It was also the beginning of a brand new kind of exclusion: digital exclusion. It's not hard to guess on which side of the digital divide the Marcoses, the Altamiros, and the Ronaldos of the world fell.
CDI decided to turn the tables by pioneering a new educational model anchored in the notion that computer technology skills are essential to creating fully enfranchised citizens.
Digital inclusion means much more than access to computers and the Internet. In 965 CDI schools operating in 19 Brazilian states and eight other countries, students are taught how to use information technology to enhance their abilities to think critically and creatively, to analyze political and social reality, and to generate jobs and business opportunities.
Above all, CDI offers students and teachers alike the opportunity to work together to become protagonists in the collective effort of building a more just and egalitarian society.
Recent studies show how difficult digital inclusion will be. In Brazil alone, fewer than 16% of households own computers and a mere 12.2% of them have access to the Internet. The vast majority of computer technology is concentrated in just three regions (the federal capital, the south, and southeast) according to a 2004 study of 183 nations by the International Telecommunications Union.
Brazil placed a lowly 65th in Internet connectivity, trailing Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica and Mexico. The high cost of personal computers, poor computer training in the classroom and inconsistent public policies are the main reasons why middle and lower income Brazilians are still outsiders in the modern information society.
Since being formed, CDI has honed its commitment to helping the least favored. And this is where the story of Marcos, Altamiro and Ronaldo picks up again.
While still serving time, all three of them signed up for classes at CDI's schools behind bars and never looked back. When they were finally released they had mastered much more than the secrets of computers:they had come to appreciate the meaning of self esteem and self determination.
Today, Marcos works for a major company in Brazil. Altamiro coordinates a CDI school, while Ronaldo runs social projects aimed at turning underprivileged residents of the neglected outskirts of Rio into full-fledged democratic citizens.
CDI has trained more than half a million people in everything from community education to protecting the environment to organizing cooperatives. Each one of these small gestures is rooted in something much larger: the realization that technology can be harnessed as a powerful tool for social change and serve as a bridge between the real and virtual worlds. These worlds may not be so distant after all.
Fonte: http://www.principalvoices.com/2006/economy/rodrigo.baggio.white.paper.html
Parceria facilita cadastro eletrônico do Moradia Digna
Cidades - 17/08/2009 - 12:21:16
Para facilitar o acesso da população à internet e garantir o maior número de inscrições ao Programa Moradia Digna, a Agência Goiana de Habitação - Agehab firmou uma parceria com a Fundação Pró-Cerrado e o com Comitê para Democratização da Informática - CDI. A Fundação Pró-Cerrado vai oferecer computadores à Agehab, para que percorram diversos pontos do Estado e da capital ajudando a população a fazer o Cadastro Eletrônico no Moradia Digna. Os computadores ficam em unidades móveis com acesso à internet e coordenada por uma equipe qualificada para auxiliar a comunidade.
O CDI vai trabalhar junto à Associação de Lan Houses do Estado de Goiás, capacitando os proprietários e funcionários para atender com qualidade quem quiser fazer o cadastro habitacional. Conforme dados do CDI, cerca de 48% dos usuários brasileiros se conectam à internet através das 100 mil lan houses do País, sendo 82% deles trabalhadores de salário-mínimo.
O cadastramento para o Moradia Digna foi aberto na última sexta-feira, dia 14, e segue até o dia 13 de outubro, só pela internet através do site www.agehab.go.gov.br , no link “Cadastro Eletrônico" Com esse recurso, a pessoa pode preencher em poucos minutos a ficha cadastral com seus dados. Os critérios básicos são: não possuir moradia própria, residir no Estado de Goiás há pelo menos três anos, ser maior de 18 anos ou emancipado, possuir renda familiar até seis salários mínimos
Fonte: http://www.noticiasdegoias.go.gov.br/index.php?idMateria=65412&tp=positivo
Para facilitar o acesso da população à internet e garantir o maior número de inscrições ao Programa Moradia Digna, a Agência Goiana de Habitação - Agehab firmou uma parceria com a Fundação Pró-Cerrado e o com Comitê para Democratização da Informática - CDI. A Fundação Pró-Cerrado vai oferecer computadores à Agehab, para que percorram diversos pontos do Estado e da capital ajudando a população a fazer o Cadastro Eletrônico no Moradia Digna. Os computadores ficam em unidades móveis com acesso à internet e coordenada por uma equipe qualificada para auxiliar a comunidade.
O CDI vai trabalhar junto à Associação de Lan Houses do Estado de Goiás, capacitando os proprietários e funcionários para atender com qualidade quem quiser fazer o cadastro habitacional. Conforme dados do CDI, cerca de 48% dos usuários brasileiros se conectam à internet através das 100 mil lan houses do País, sendo 82% deles trabalhadores de salário-mínimo.
O cadastramento para o Moradia Digna foi aberto na última sexta-feira, dia 14, e segue até o dia 13 de outubro, só pela internet através do site www.agehab.go.gov.br , no link “Cadastro Eletrônico" Com esse recurso, a pessoa pode preencher em poucos minutos a ficha cadastral com seus dados. Os critérios básicos são: não possuir moradia própria, residir no Estado de Goiás há pelo menos três anos, ser maior de 18 anos ou emancipado, possuir renda familiar até seis salários mínimos
Fonte: http://www.noticiasdegoias.go.gov.br/index.php?idMateria=65412&tp=positivo
Desenvolvimento sustentável em 80 lições concretas
03/08/2009 17:05:45
Por Fernando Souza Filho
Há luz no fim do túnel, mesmo em meio a uma crise econômica e sob a ameaça crescente do aquecimento global. E as soluções não estão na mente dos teóricos nem nas mesas de negociação dos países mais ricos ou dos emergentes. Elas já estão sendo colocadas em prática, e com sucesso, nos mais diversos pontos do planeta.
O que falta é divulgá-las para que possam ser adotadas em maior escala. É isso que mostra o mais novo livro da Clio Editora: 80 Homens para Mudar o Mundo, escrito a quatro mãos por Sylvain Darnil e Mathieu Le Roux.
A idéia do livro surgiu em São Paulo. Os dois jovens, recém-formados em negócios, trabalhavam em diferentes empresas francesas e vieram para o Brasil para trabalhar por um período de 18 meses. Conheceram-se por acaso, numa churrascaria, convidados por um amigo em comum. O que poderia ter sido somente um encontro agradável, sem maiores conseqüências, revelou um desejo em comum: viajar pelo mundo.
Essa crença não surgiu do nada. Ambos haviam lido a autobiografia de Muhammad Yunus, o professor de economia de Bangladesh que criou o conceito de microcrédito e fundou o Grameen Bank. Também conhecido como Banco dos Pobres, o Grameen empresta dinheiro a pessoas sem recursos para que elas possam iniciar pequenos negócios.
Para facilitar a leitura, os empreendimentos estão divididos por continente. Um índice por assuntos ajuda o leitor a encontrar iniciativas também por área de atividade. Em 80 Homens para Mudar o Mundo, é possível conhecer a American Apparel, fabricante de roupas, especialmente camisetas, que produz cerca de 1 milhão de peças por semana e é a mais rentável do setor de confecções dos Estados Unidos, graças a um modelo de negócios que prioriza as condições de trabalho e o salário dos funcionários.
Da América do Sul e África, os autores selecionaram iniciativas, quatro delas no Brasil. Voltado para a preservação, o Projeto Tamar transformou as tartarugas em atração turística. A rede CDI – Comitê para a Democratização da Informática promove a inclusão digital graças a escolas de informática instaladas em comunidades pobres. O livro destaca ainda a atuação de Jaime Lerner, ex-prefeito de Curitiba, e o sucesso da Ideaas, empresa gaúcha especializada na locação de painéis solares para a zona rural.
Preço médio do livro: R$ 39,00.
Fonte: http://pcmag.uol.com.br/conteudo.php?id=2242
Por Fernando Souza Filho
Há luz no fim do túnel, mesmo em meio a uma crise econômica e sob a ameaça crescente do aquecimento global. E as soluções não estão na mente dos teóricos nem nas mesas de negociação dos países mais ricos ou dos emergentes. Elas já estão sendo colocadas em prática, e com sucesso, nos mais diversos pontos do planeta.
O que falta é divulgá-las para que possam ser adotadas em maior escala. É isso que mostra o mais novo livro da Clio Editora: 80 Homens para Mudar o Mundo, escrito a quatro mãos por Sylvain Darnil e Mathieu Le Roux.
A idéia do livro surgiu em São Paulo. Os dois jovens, recém-formados em negócios, trabalhavam em diferentes empresas francesas e vieram para o Brasil para trabalhar por um período de 18 meses. Conheceram-se por acaso, numa churrascaria, convidados por um amigo em comum. O que poderia ter sido somente um encontro agradável, sem maiores conseqüências, revelou um desejo em comum: viajar pelo mundo.
Essa crença não surgiu do nada. Ambos haviam lido a autobiografia de Muhammad Yunus, o professor de economia de Bangladesh que criou o conceito de microcrédito e fundou o Grameen Bank. Também conhecido como Banco dos Pobres, o Grameen empresta dinheiro a pessoas sem recursos para que elas possam iniciar pequenos negócios.
Para facilitar a leitura, os empreendimentos estão divididos por continente. Um índice por assuntos ajuda o leitor a encontrar iniciativas também por área de atividade. Em 80 Homens para Mudar o Mundo, é possível conhecer a American Apparel, fabricante de roupas, especialmente camisetas, que produz cerca de 1 milhão de peças por semana e é a mais rentável do setor de confecções dos Estados Unidos, graças a um modelo de negócios que prioriza as condições de trabalho e o salário dos funcionários.
Da América do Sul e África, os autores selecionaram iniciativas, quatro delas no Brasil. Voltado para a preservação, o Projeto Tamar transformou as tartarugas em atração turística. A rede CDI – Comitê para a Democratização da Informática promove a inclusão digital graças a escolas de informática instaladas em comunidades pobres. O livro destaca ainda a atuação de Jaime Lerner, ex-prefeito de Curitiba, e o sucesso da Ideaas, empresa gaúcha especializada na locação de painéis solares para a zona rural.
Preço médio do livro: R$ 39,00.
Fonte: http://pcmag.uol.com.br/conteudo.php?id=2242
Lixo eletrônico: o que fazer?
Geral - 01/08/2009 - 08h17
Quando chega o fim da vida útil de artigos eletrônicos, quem deve se responsabilizar pelo descarte adequado desses produtos? Será a população, os fabricantes ou o poder público? Na verdade, todos devem ter sua parcela de comprometimento: os consumidores precisam fazer um uso racional desses equipamentos, empresas têm de orientá-los sobre o destino final, e cabe ao governo regulamentar esse processo de descarte. Essa é a ideia defendida por entidades, grupos da sociedade civil e políticos interessados no assunto. No entanto, esses papéis ainda não estão bem definidos.
Para Rodrigo Baggio, empreendedor social, fundador e diretor-executivo do Comitê para Democratização da Informática (CDI), a solução desse impasse ainda não está pronta. De acordo com ele, é preciso um amplo debate entre todos os segmentos sociais, que devem lidar de modo crítico, atento e responsável. “Em geral, numa sociedade cujos atores e setores ainda não se sentem suficientemente autônomos, uns ficam esperando os outros encontrarem uma solução. Então, ninguém toma a questão para si e dá o primeiro passo”, afirma.
Felipe Andueza, membro do projeto lixoeletrônico.org, também acredita que todos os setores da sociedade devem assumir sua responsabilidade. O grupo criou o Manifesto do Lixo Eletrônico, cuja proposta é incluir esses equipamentos no Projeto de Lei 203/91, em tramitação na Câmara dos Deputados, que obriga a logística reversa e deposição adequada de produtos com potencial de contaminação. Andueza comenta que estudo da Associação Brasileira da Indústria Elétrica e Eletrônica (Abinee) estima que apenas 1% dos eletrônicos do mercado formal consumidos no Brasil são reciclados. Dada a gravidade do problema, ele assegura que há muito a ser feito.
“As pessoas, como cidadãs, podem cobrar políticas públicas eficientes. Já como consumidoras, podem pressionar os fabricantes a aceitarem os equipamentos que produziram. As empresas fabricantes de eletrônicos devem se responsabilizar pelo ciclo reverso de seus produtos e, como consumidoras, devem dar o melhor destino a seus descartes tecnológicos. Enquanto o poder público deve regulamentar políticas públicas eficientes na área, consumir eletrônicos com certificação ambiental e promover a reciclagem e a conscientização da população”, considera Andueza.
Consumo e lixo
O deputado estadual de São Paulo, Paulo Alexandre Barbosa (PSDB), autor do Projeto de Lei 33/2008, sancionado pelo governador José Serra em julho de 2009 e que institui normas e procedimentos para a reciclagem, o gerenciamento e a destinação final de lixo tecnológico, entre outras providências, explica que é necessário compatibilizar o avanço produtivo e da tecnologia com a preservação do meio ambiente. “Sabemos do papel estratégico do Brasil como um dos quatro países do mundo, com China, Rússia e Índia, com maior potencial de desenvolvimento econômico nas próximas décadas. E é claro que esse desenvolvimento inclui a questão da ampliação do acesso à tecnologia”, comenta.
De acordo com Barbosa, dados apontam que foram comercializados no Brasil cerca de 12 milhões de computadores somente em 2008, contra os 10 milhões no ano anterior. Ainda em 2007, os brasileiros compraram 1.912 milhão de laptops, o que representou um salto de 183% sobre as vendas de 2006. “Calcula-se que o mercado brasileiro possua 140 milhões de aparelhos celulares em operação. Isso sem contar a venda de televisores, que bate recordes sucessivos todos os anos. O problema é que o tempo atual de obsolescência desses equipamentos é de dois a quatro anos”, pondera.
O consumo exacerbado e a menor vida útil dos artigos eletrônicos implicam o agravamento da situação. “Especialistas das áreas de tecnologia e de meio ambiente preveem que o País deve enfrentar, nos próximos cinco anos, uma enxurrada de lixo tecnológico; situação que já se tornou um problema grave para os Estados Unidos e países europeus. São Paulo, como o maior pólo consumidor desses equipamentos no País, deverá ser o estado mais afetado nos próximos anos pela questão”, salienta.
Para o deputado, os consumidores devem ter conhecimento da composição dos produtos que levam para casa. Isso porque alguns materiais possuem grande concentração de agentes químicos altamente nocivos ao meio ambiente e à saúde da população. “O arsênico presente nos celulares ou o chumbo dos computadores e dos televisores pode causar desde danos ao sistema nervoso até o câncer, por exemplo”, completa.
Falta de regulamentação
Rodrigo Baggio lembra que, no Brasil, não há uma legislação em âmbito federal que trate claramente do papel das empresas no que se refere à fabricação, ao recolhimento e ao descarte desses produtos. “Estamos muito atrasados nessa questão, sobretudo em função da crescente venda de computadores e periféricos e do menor tempo de vida útil dos equipamentos. Mas já existem leis municipais e estaduais, sobretudo em grandes centros de consumo como Rio de Janeiro e São Paulo, que se reportam à responsabilidade das empresas fabricantes”, avalia o fundador do CDI.
O deputado de São Paulo explica que o projeto sancionado em julho pelo governador José Serra prevê que os estabelecimentos comerciais possuam pontos de coleta de equipamentos. “Esse é um arranjo que deve ser estabelecido entre os comerciantes e as empresas e/ou importadores com os quais eles trabalham”, emenda Barbosa. A ideia do projeto é que o consumidor entregue o equipamento usado na loja em que foi adquirido, por exemplo, e o comerciante encaminhe para o produtor. “Nada impede, no entanto, que os fabricantes e importadores disponibilizem números de telefone que o consumidor possa acessar para que o produto seja retirado na residência da pessoa, como algumas empresas já fazem em vários países”, acrescenta.
Apesar de considerar imprescindíveis as leis que atentem empresas e cidadãos para suas responsabilidades com o lixo, Baggio lembra que elas não têm papel educativo, medida crucial para resolver a situação. Para ele, consumidores conscientes têm o poder de escolher melhor e de lutar por condições econômicas, sociais e ambientais mais corretas e justas. “O cidadão comum não tem o direito de jogar seu equipamento velho em qualquer terreno, apenas transferindo o problema de lugar. Por isso, é preciso disponibilizar postos de coleta, formas de recolhimento e, principalmente, informação a respeito do assunto. Afinal, estamos na era do conhecimento, com muito mais facilidade para nos comunicarmos e expressarmos. Devemos usar isso a favor da construção de uma postura mais cidadã e de uma vida com mais qualidade e dignidade”, opina.
Segundo Baggio, o CDI estuda esse tema com apoio de professores e especialistas. O objetivo da entidade é contribuir para aprofundar a qualidade das informações e das discussões. “Estamos distantes de uma solução ideal. Será que é mais conveniente cuidar do lixo aqui ou mandar para fora? As próprias empresas fazerem ou terceirizarem o serviço? Para onde estão enviando o que sobra dos computadores, e quem manipula esses restos? São perguntas a serem respondidas, mas com o apoio do poder público, sem dúvida”, discorre.
Uma notícia publicada pela Agência Estado no domingo, 26 de julho, revela que os Estados Unidos exportam 80% de seus resíduos eletrônicos para países pobres, incluindo o Brasil, com a maior quantidade desembarcando na China. Os números da consultoria suíça Basel Action são ainda mais alarmantes e citam que os chineses ficam com 90% do lixo norte-americano, além de produzirem anualmente 1 milhão de toneladas.
Atuação dos produtores
Marcus Nakagawa, assessor de Sustentabilidade da Philips afirma que a empresa entende a necessidade de se buscar continuamente o melhor aproveitamento dos equipamentos tecnológicos fora de uso. Por isso, a companhia criou o Ciclo Sustentável Philips, um programa destinado a recolher e reciclar os aparelhos eletrônicos da marca que estejam obsoletos. “Os equipamentos entregues nos postos credenciados receberão a correta destinação e, sempre que possível, a reciclagem. O programa visa a minimizar o impacto ambiental e a produção de lixo, promovendo sustentabilidade e bem-estar”, explica, acrescentando que o piloto da iniciativa foi lançado em Manaus (AM), em 2008, e será estendido para o restante do País após a análise dos resultados.
Por intermédio do programa de preservação ambiental, instituído há dez anos para, inicialmente, receber baterias, a Motorola já recolheu 280 toneladas de componentes eletrônicos para reciclagem. Essa é uma iniciativa mundial da companhia para descarte adequado de acessórios e aparelhos fora de uso. De acordo com informações da empresa, foram retiradas 30 toneladas de material nos postos de coleta instalados nas 120 lojas do Serviço Autorizado Motorola de todo o País em 2008. Por considerar o programa um sucesso, a empresa criou o ECOMOTO em 2007. A iniciativa prevê que, após a coleta do material cuja vida útil tenha terminado, os componentes sejam analisados e classificados para o processo de reciclagem e algumas substâncias, como cobre, ouro, bronze e ferro, recuperadas.
A IBM também possui uma política voltada para o descarte adequado dos resíduos de sua produção e também dos equipamentos que ficam nos clientes. Segundo comunicado da empresa, desde 2000 os monitores deixaram de ser enviados para aterros sanitários. A companhia passou a armazenar esses equipamentos até identificar uma tecnologia ambientalmente correta para efetuar a destinação final. Em 2008, 180 toneladas de monitores começaram a ser enviadas para reciclagem. Nesse processo, o vidro, por exemplo, se transforma em bolinhas de gude.
De acordo com Nakagawa, a Philips busca estabelecer uma convergência de forças com fornecedores, clientes, funcionários e parceiros para compreender os dilemas da sustentabilidade. E, nesse processo, a Comunicação Corporativa tem muito a contribuir. “Essa área é de vital importância para a difusão da conscientização tanto do público interno da empresa quanto do público externo a respeito das políticas que visam à sustentabilidade, que é parte integrante de nossos negócios globalmente. Ela impulsiona a criação e o desenvolvimento de soluções e de produtos com maior eficiência energética e responsabilidade socioambiental. A sustentabilidade é a garantia de manutenção de mercados e negócios futuros da empresa”, completa.
Fonte: Redação Pantanal News/Envolverde
Quando chega o fim da vida útil de artigos eletrônicos, quem deve se responsabilizar pelo descarte adequado desses produtos? Será a população, os fabricantes ou o poder público? Na verdade, todos devem ter sua parcela de comprometimento: os consumidores precisam fazer um uso racional desses equipamentos, empresas têm de orientá-los sobre o destino final, e cabe ao governo regulamentar esse processo de descarte. Essa é a ideia defendida por entidades, grupos da sociedade civil e políticos interessados no assunto. No entanto, esses papéis ainda não estão bem definidos.
Para Rodrigo Baggio, empreendedor social, fundador e diretor-executivo do Comitê para Democratização da Informática (CDI), a solução desse impasse ainda não está pronta. De acordo com ele, é preciso um amplo debate entre todos os segmentos sociais, que devem lidar de modo crítico, atento e responsável. “Em geral, numa sociedade cujos atores e setores ainda não se sentem suficientemente autônomos, uns ficam esperando os outros encontrarem uma solução. Então, ninguém toma a questão para si e dá o primeiro passo”, afirma.
Felipe Andueza, membro do projeto lixoeletrônico.org, também acredita que todos os setores da sociedade devem assumir sua responsabilidade. O grupo criou o Manifesto do Lixo Eletrônico, cuja proposta é incluir esses equipamentos no Projeto de Lei 203/91, em tramitação na Câmara dos Deputados, que obriga a logística reversa e deposição adequada de produtos com potencial de contaminação. Andueza comenta que estudo da Associação Brasileira da Indústria Elétrica e Eletrônica (Abinee) estima que apenas 1% dos eletrônicos do mercado formal consumidos no Brasil são reciclados. Dada a gravidade do problema, ele assegura que há muito a ser feito.
“As pessoas, como cidadãs, podem cobrar políticas públicas eficientes. Já como consumidoras, podem pressionar os fabricantes a aceitarem os equipamentos que produziram. As empresas fabricantes de eletrônicos devem se responsabilizar pelo ciclo reverso de seus produtos e, como consumidoras, devem dar o melhor destino a seus descartes tecnológicos. Enquanto o poder público deve regulamentar políticas públicas eficientes na área, consumir eletrônicos com certificação ambiental e promover a reciclagem e a conscientização da população”, considera Andueza.
Consumo e lixo
O deputado estadual de São Paulo, Paulo Alexandre Barbosa (PSDB), autor do Projeto de Lei 33/2008, sancionado pelo governador José Serra em julho de 2009 e que institui normas e procedimentos para a reciclagem, o gerenciamento e a destinação final de lixo tecnológico, entre outras providências, explica que é necessário compatibilizar o avanço produtivo e da tecnologia com a preservação do meio ambiente. “Sabemos do papel estratégico do Brasil como um dos quatro países do mundo, com China, Rússia e Índia, com maior potencial de desenvolvimento econômico nas próximas décadas. E é claro que esse desenvolvimento inclui a questão da ampliação do acesso à tecnologia”, comenta.
De acordo com Barbosa, dados apontam que foram comercializados no Brasil cerca de 12 milhões de computadores somente em 2008, contra os 10 milhões no ano anterior. Ainda em 2007, os brasileiros compraram 1.912 milhão de laptops, o que representou um salto de 183% sobre as vendas de 2006. “Calcula-se que o mercado brasileiro possua 140 milhões de aparelhos celulares em operação. Isso sem contar a venda de televisores, que bate recordes sucessivos todos os anos. O problema é que o tempo atual de obsolescência desses equipamentos é de dois a quatro anos”, pondera.
O consumo exacerbado e a menor vida útil dos artigos eletrônicos implicam o agravamento da situação. “Especialistas das áreas de tecnologia e de meio ambiente preveem que o País deve enfrentar, nos próximos cinco anos, uma enxurrada de lixo tecnológico; situação que já se tornou um problema grave para os Estados Unidos e países europeus. São Paulo, como o maior pólo consumidor desses equipamentos no País, deverá ser o estado mais afetado nos próximos anos pela questão”, salienta.
Para o deputado, os consumidores devem ter conhecimento da composição dos produtos que levam para casa. Isso porque alguns materiais possuem grande concentração de agentes químicos altamente nocivos ao meio ambiente e à saúde da população. “O arsênico presente nos celulares ou o chumbo dos computadores e dos televisores pode causar desde danos ao sistema nervoso até o câncer, por exemplo”, completa.
Falta de regulamentação
Rodrigo Baggio lembra que, no Brasil, não há uma legislação em âmbito federal que trate claramente do papel das empresas no que se refere à fabricação, ao recolhimento e ao descarte desses produtos. “Estamos muito atrasados nessa questão, sobretudo em função da crescente venda de computadores e periféricos e do menor tempo de vida útil dos equipamentos. Mas já existem leis municipais e estaduais, sobretudo em grandes centros de consumo como Rio de Janeiro e São Paulo, que se reportam à responsabilidade das empresas fabricantes”, avalia o fundador do CDI.
O deputado de São Paulo explica que o projeto sancionado em julho pelo governador José Serra prevê que os estabelecimentos comerciais possuam pontos de coleta de equipamentos. “Esse é um arranjo que deve ser estabelecido entre os comerciantes e as empresas e/ou importadores com os quais eles trabalham”, emenda Barbosa. A ideia do projeto é que o consumidor entregue o equipamento usado na loja em que foi adquirido, por exemplo, e o comerciante encaminhe para o produtor. “Nada impede, no entanto, que os fabricantes e importadores disponibilizem números de telefone que o consumidor possa acessar para que o produto seja retirado na residência da pessoa, como algumas empresas já fazem em vários países”, acrescenta.
Apesar de considerar imprescindíveis as leis que atentem empresas e cidadãos para suas responsabilidades com o lixo, Baggio lembra que elas não têm papel educativo, medida crucial para resolver a situação. Para ele, consumidores conscientes têm o poder de escolher melhor e de lutar por condições econômicas, sociais e ambientais mais corretas e justas. “O cidadão comum não tem o direito de jogar seu equipamento velho em qualquer terreno, apenas transferindo o problema de lugar. Por isso, é preciso disponibilizar postos de coleta, formas de recolhimento e, principalmente, informação a respeito do assunto. Afinal, estamos na era do conhecimento, com muito mais facilidade para nos comunicarmos e expressarmos. Devemos usar isso a favor da construção de uma postura mais cidadã e de uma vida com mais qualidade e dignidade”, opina.
Segundo Baggio, o CDI estuda esse tema com apoio de professores e especialistas. O objetivo da entidade é contribuir para aprofundar a qualidade das informações e das discussões. “Estamos distantes de uma solução ideal. Será que é mais conveniente cuidar do lixo aqui ou mandar para fora? As próprias empresas fazerem ou terceirizarem o serviço? Para onde estão enviando o que sobra dos computadores, e quem manipula esses restos? São perguntas a serem respondidas, mas com o apoio do poder público, sem dúvida”, discorre.
Uma notícia publicada pela Agência Estado no domingo, 26 de julho, revela que os Estados Unidos exportam 80% de seus resíduos eletrônicos para países pobres, incluindo o Brasil, com a maior quantidade desembarcando na China. Os números da consultoria suíça Basel Action são ainda mais alarmantes e citam que os chineses ficam com 90% do lixo norte-americano, além de produzirem anualmente 1 milhão de toneladas.
Atuação dos produtores
Marcus Nakagawa, assessor de Sustentabilidade da Philips afirma que a empresa entende a necessidade de se buscar continuamente o melhor aproveitamento dos equipamentos tecnológicos fora de uso. Por isso, a companhia criou o Ciclo Sustentável Philips, um programa destinado a recolher e reciclar os aparelhos eletrônicos da marca que estejam obsoletos. “Os equipamentos entregues nos postos credenciados receberão a correta destinação e, sempre que possível, a reciclagem. O programa visa a minimizar o impacto ambiental e a produção de lixo, promovendo sustentabilidade e bem-estar”, explica, acrescentando que o piloto da iniciativa foi lançado em Manaus (AM), em 2008, e será estendido para o restante do País após a análise dos resultados.
Por intermédio do programa de preservação ambiental, instituído há dez anos para, inicialmente, receber baterias, a Motorola já recolheu 280 toneladas de componentes eletrônicos para reciclagem. Essa é uma iniciativa mundial da companhia para descarte adequado de acessórios e aparelhos fora de uso. De acordo com informações da empresa, foram retiradas 30 toneladas de material nos postos de coleta instalados nas 120 lojas do Serviço Autorizado Motorola de todo o País em 2008. Por considerar o programa um sucesso, a empresa criou o ECOMOTO em 2007. A iniciativa prevê que, após a coleta do material cuja vida útil tenha terminado, os componentes sejam analisados e classificados para o processo de reciclagem e algumas substâncias, como cobre, ouro, bronze e ferro, recuperadas.
A IBM também possui uma política voltada para o descarte adequado dos resíduos de sua produção e também dos equipamentos que ficam nos clientes. Segundo comunicado da empresa, desde 2000 os monitores deixaram de ser enviados para aterros sanitários. A companhia passou a armazenar esses equipamentos até identificar uma tecnologia ambientalmente correta para efetuar a destinação final. Em 2008, 180 toneladas de monitores começaram a ser enviadas para reciclagem. Nesse processo, o vidro, por exemplo, se transforma em bolinhas de gude.
De acordo com Nakagawa, a Philips busca estabelecer uma convergência de forças com fornecedores, clientes, funcionários e parceiros para compreender os dilemas da sustentabilidade. E, nesse processo, a Comunicação Corporativa tem muito a contribuir. “Essa área é de vital importância para a difusão da conscientização tanto do público interno da empresa quanto do público externo a respeito das políticas que visam à sustentabilidade, que é parte integrante de nossos negócios globalmente. Ela impulsiona a criação e o desenvolvimento de soluções e de produtos com maior eficiência energética e responsabilidade socioambiental. A sustentabilidade é a garantia de manutenção de mercados e negócios futuros da empresa”, completa.
Fonte: Redação Pantanal News/Envolverde
domingo, 9 de agosto de 2009
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