On October 28, URI Trustee Sofía Painiqueo traveled from Lumaco in Chile to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to fulfill several work commitments organized by URI Trustee Salette Aquino, also a representative of CC Brasilia, a URI Cooperation Circle or member group.
It was five days’ work: First, there was a meeting with Sebastião Santos, the President of the oldest NGO in Brazil, Viva Rio, which is one of the great allies of URI. Present were Graças, Alice and Tony, members of CC MIR (another URI Cooperation Circle).
Click the yellow arrows to scroll through the photos in the slideshow.
We took a tour of the entire NGO, which has 2,500 volunteers, many officials, 80 social equality projects and acts in three favelas (poor communities) of the big city. One of the favelas where the NGO has work is the first open-air museum. We talked with young people who were doing an entrepreneurship course, and with women from a self-sustaining sewing cooperative. We talked with the founder of Viva Río, Rubem César, Director of the institution, who was given all the information about the URI URI Preamble, Purpose and Principles (PPPs).
After visiting Viva Rio, we went to a meeting at ISER, an institute that began with academic studies on religions and actions in 1970 in Campinas, coordinated by Rubem Alves, an important professor and writer. Some years later, Rubem César founded the NGO Viva Río. The counselors were received by Clemir, who will facilitate strengthening cooperative relations between them and URI, especially in relation to the Interreligious Campaign for Forests. They are the institution responsible in Brazil for that campaign.
