SSVP Brazil, Supporting Life-Changing Social Projects
Income-generating programmes and vocational skills help to alleviate poverty
Since 2011, the SSVP Brazil has given priority to investments in social projects presented by the country’s conferences. The social projects undertaken by the SSVP Brazil are initiatives focused on structural changes, thus effectively promoting the empowerment of people in achieving sustainable development, social integration and poverty eradication by means of income-generating programmes and the acquisition of vocational skills.
The projects are examined by a committee of the National Council and, if approved, the corresponding budget is granted for execution. Then, these projects are shortlisted by the Central and Metropolitan Councils on a yearly basis. In the last 3 years, there has been an increasing number of projects, with a growing involvement of conferences. For this period, 104 projects were approved, with a total investment of 828,000 Reais (approximately USD 208,000).
‘Rainbow project’ was one of the projects approved, in Porto Seguro, located in the State of Bahia (Brazil): a learning environment offering free vocational education and training courses, school support and English lessons. The resources provided to the project were used to rehabilitate the premises, where the aforementioned courses and lessons were taught.
The social projects launched by the SSVP Brazil foster personal development, entrepreneurships and the economic independence of families assisted by the Vincentian Conferences. This is the case of another project, in Juiz de Fora, a city in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, where a conference received funds for the purchase of a popcorn cart and other equipment for a person supported by the conference to sell popcorn in the streets of the city.
In the view of the SSVP Brazil’s National President, Cristian Reis da Luz, social projects have helped Vincentian conferences accomplish the mission of changing lives: “Social projects help us respond to and fulfill the dream of the families we support. The hundreds of projects already undertaken in Brazil are an opportunity for these people to build a better future for themselves by means of their own work”, he said.
2021’s project shortlisting has already kicked off, and Vincentian conferences are preparing the proposals to be submitted to the National Council.
