CRS Work in Brazil
Catholic Relief Services Brazil focuses programming activities in the following areas:
Agriculture and Water Management
Latin America's largest concentration of rural poverty exists in Brazil's semiarid region, a vast area in the northeast corner of the country. There, more than 20 percent of the population lives on less than $1 per day. Contending with an unforgiving climate, unstable markets and meager credit options, the region's rural poor depend on subsistence agriculture for survival. Most families farm small plots, but many must rent land, live as sharecroppers or join the country's large population of landless families. More than 40 percent of landless Brazilians live in the northeast.
To help improve the situation in this very dry region, CRS Brazil works with local partners to create innovative systems for capturing water. From inexpensive, traditional technologies such as the use of boreholes, community reservoirs and cisterns, to innovative techniques such as underground reservoirs, our partners help communities increase farming efficiency and improve sanitation and health conditions. A central component of our projects is ensuring that the concerns of the rural poor are considered in the initiatives of the Brazilian government to foster growth.
Emergency-Preparedness and Risk-Reduction Programs
In early 2004, a devastating flood deluged the northeast, causing $160 million in damages and displacing more than 100,000 people. Not only did the flood wipe out homes and fields, it dramatically undercut decades of economic development projects — including vital dams and cisterns — designed to help small-scale farmers better cope with the droughts and poor soil characteristic of the region. With our partners, CRS Brazil created a project in 2007 to help communities prepare for droughts and floods. In addition to helping them develop locally appropriate water storage technologies, the project educates communities in efficient emergency response processes while improving their access to reliable weather information.
The Fight Against Slave Labor
Extreme poverty and lack of economic opportunity is at the root of one of Brazil's most blatant violations of human rights: slave labor. CRS estimates that up to 40,000 laborers are working under conditions akin to slave labor, particularly in those areas on the fringes of Amazonia where development is most rapidly occurring. Most victims are poorly skilled, illiterate and landless rural workers from the outskirts of cities who are lured from the impoverished northeastern region with promises of a better life by unscrupulous individuals (the so-called "gatos") who procure labor for ranches, farms and charcoal plants.
Trails of Liberty, one ongoing CRS Brazil project, is aimed at stamping out slave labor altogether. With funding from the U.S. Department of Labor, the project connects key national and state officials with active nongovernmental organizations, pastoral committees, and community organizations. The result is a network that offers effective social and legal support for victims, provides job training and employment opportunities for at-risk workers, and raises public and political awareness of the ramifications of slave labor in Brazil.
Addressing Urban Poverty in Brazil
While CRS Brazil and local partners focus on projects in rural areas, in today's Brazil more than 80 percent of the population lives in urban areas, and many of these Brazilians are impoverished as well. CRS Brazil has initiated a cooperative project with Caritas Amazonas to support urban garbage recyclers as a means of both securing income for their families as well as promoting human dignity.
