Daise de Rosas da Natividade from EOSS in focus as Vital Voices "Emerging Woman Leader"

A film crew engaged by Vital Voices was doing a reportage of woman social entrepreneur projects that EOSS Consulting and Director Daise Rosas da Natividade are supporting .

Daise and the President of the Agency for Local Development Ana Lucia

Vital Voices Global Partnership is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that identifies, trains and empowers emerging women leaders and social entrepreneurs around the globe, enabling them to create a better world for us all.

Asking Daise about her participation in the Vital Voices program, she told the following:
The invitation of Vital Voices to join their Woman Leaders program has opened my eyes about the importance of working with women and more than that on building a strong network between women. The program helped to shape our entrepreneur consulting firm towards more structured and fruitful practices. I am very proud today to see that the women that we support, create new workplaces for other women and mentor them in their personal and professional growth. 

In order to give Vital Voices a good picture of the impact Daise and EOSS are making in developing social entrepreneurship in the Rio de Janeiro region, a couple of different locations and institutions that EOSS is supporting currently were chosen to be visited .

First place of the visit was the City of God (Cidade de Deus) where EOSS consults the Agency for Local Development and the Center of Woman Eco Arts. As we recently reported EOSS is consulting the agency in their creation of a Community Bank with the objective of sustainable development in the community by encouraging local entrepreneurship and consumption.

The center of Women Eco Arts is supported by EOSS with social entrepreneurs courses and has been a very successful project in helping them to create of a production line for fashion articles made of recycled materials.
The Arts Center deploys currently 20 women of the community and creates awareness amongst all residents for recycling in an extremely polluted environment.

The woman showed how the recycled material is used smartly to produce toys, handbags and jewelery. With rivers that are sometimes completely covered of trash, creating awareness for the nature and recycling is crucial to improve the life quality of the residents in the community.


Women Eco Arts also initiated the the Favela Fashion group, a cooperative with 5 other communites in order to promote their crafts in fashion shows and local craft markets. EOSS facilitated their participation of the  in the parade of the Brazil 2010 Expo.

Toys made of recycled plastic  bottles

Next stop of the film crew was back in the city center of Rio de Janeiro, at the Hair Studio Quilamur.

The studio is run by Claudia Taliah who was supported by EOSS to take part in the "Youth in Business program", funded by the U.S. State Department. The Hair Studio is in the meantime financed and runs independently.
Claudia has become a teacher in classes that EOSS sponsored for about 60 other students in Noava Iguaçu, Belford Roxo and São João de Meriti. These student are currently working on a business plan to offer their services as cooperative at international events and on cruise ships.
Daise explained this typical example of multiplication of the EOSS support in the hair studio whilst Claudia was working with a showing student on a dread lock.

After this stop, the whole crew went on a trip deep inside the north of the state of Rio de Janeiro a place called Itatiaia, known for its banana palm-trees and gentle hills that are covered with rainforest.
The Secretariat of Policies for Women is running a production site of fashion articles there. 

EOSS supports them with entrepreneurial courses for woman who produce fashion articles with sustainable material like recycled paper and banana fibers. The focus of the courses is on pricing, marketing, creation of a plan for entry into new markets and an online shop. In addition EOSS will facilitate the creation of cooperatives with institutions that produce similar products.

Just as the sun went down the team arrived and left the traffic behind to take some beautiful shots of the production sight with the last sun rays of the day. As a demonstration the fiber of a Banana tree was cut out and prepared to be used for the production of their innovative crafts.

EOSS supports the launch of the first community bank in Rio de Janeiro

On Thursday 15, 2011, the first community bank of Rio de Janeiro was opened in the City of God (Cidade da Deus), an economically underdeveloped community in the West Zone of the city. 

EOSS Director Silvia Regina de Almeida consulted the Agency of Local Development in their effort to launch and start running the bank successfully over the last 9 month. EOSS Project Manager Benjamin Rath will support the agency going forward in their personnel and organizational development which will be crucial in their new endeavors. In addition EOSS will offer formation programs for young entrepreneurs to support new businesses in the community.

from the left: João Joaquim of the Banco Palmas, Ana Lucia Serafim Director of the Agency of Local Development, Silvia Almeida and Benjamin Rath from EOSS 

  

In order to develop the local economy, the Community Bank of the City of God will operate with their own money, the social currency CDD (for Cidade de Deus). Each CDD is worth 1 Brazilian Real.
The goal of the new solidarity currency is sustainable development in the community by encouraging  consumption in the City of God instead outside the community. 

The starting point for this is given by the bank who will provide micro loans with low interest rates to merchants and families. The bank will focus especially on those who are not served properly by commercial banks and keep their administrative effort low with simple financial background checks and information of neighbors about the credit-worthiness of people who apply for a loan.

Supermarket announcing acceptance of new currency

The success of the solidarity currency after this facilitation of the bank will be in the hand of the residents and will require their loyalty with their own community.

Currently over 70% of the money that is earned in the City of God is being spent outside the community.

Supermaket announcing discount when paying with CDD

The merchants will need to accept the payment with the new currency and attract the local consumers with special discounts when paying with CDD.

The consumers themselves will have to be more loyal to the businesses of their own community and purchase goods and services within the community, generating a local economic circuit.
 
So far the Agency of Local Development has registered about one hundred merchants, and many are already doing promotions and discounting, to attract consumers who are buying with CDD. The interest and enthusiasm of the people in CDD promises a good start in getting the CDD flowing well.
 
The event to launch the community bank also had the participation of the mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, and the national secretary for Solidarity Economy, Paul Singer, among other officials and politicians.

The Mayor of Rio and other politicians celebrating the launch of the currency with long time residents of the community

In his speech to the population of the City of God Paes underlined the importance of the program in the economical agenda of the state government and gave himself confident that the it will be an effective measure in reducing poverty.  
Singer added that the solidarity economy is spreading worldwide and that the community bank of the City of God is the 63rd of its kind that was established in Brazil. For Singer community banks have proven to be a successful way to break the economical isolation that exists in poor communities.

Graduation Celebration of EOSS Professional Qualification Programs

 

Graduation Celebration in Nova Iguaçu

On Friday, July 15th EOSS organized the graduation celebration of some of the over 50 Professional Qualification Programs that were sponsored by the federal Secretariat for Policies for Women and the Superintendency for Women’s Rights in Rio de Janeiro. The program aims to prepare the city for the World Cup and the Olympic Games, specifically by building human capital and capacity of low-income women. 

78 participants in the community of Nova Iguaçu received their certificate of completing a 4 weeks course in handcrafts and hair dressing.

The event took place in the 'Centro Integrado de Atendimento a Mulher' (CIAM), an institution that provides support to woman who suffered domestic violence.

Most of the participants are being supported by this center and were given the chance to qualify themselves through the course professionally in order to improve their difficult financial and personal situation.

 

The event was attended by the Secretary for Policies for Women and the Superintendent for Women’s Rights in Rio de Janeiro who were very satisfied with the results and organization of the program.

The organizers Silvia Regina de Almeida and Daise Rosas da Natividade from EOSS consulting were leading through the event and gave the word to the sponsors, who congratulated the participants for their great effort and wished them good luck with their future endeavors.

The event was given a beautifully setting by the decorated and perfectly organized by the CIAM (Center for the Support of Woman Rights) and greatly accompanied by live music.

After a couple of songs the event turned to its climate: the fashion show, where the participants showed their learned skills in hair dressing and the fashion accessories they had crafted. The catwalk was greatly supported by models the community of Cidade da Deus, and the live music and received huge waves of applause from the crowd that had come to celebrate the achievements of the participants.

Hairstyling of the models

                                              

Hair Details

The participants of the hair dressing course show their skills.

Details of the accessories that were

shown in the catwalk. Above fabric

necklace and below a handbag

made of sustainable material.

                                                                                                                    

 

The organizers had also set up some stands fort he participants to show their products in detail and discuss with the audience the production techniques.  

Award of  Certificates

  

As the closing act the representatives from the sponsoring institutions were given the honor to award the certificates personally to the participants and invite them to some snacks the organizers had prepared.

Teachers Claudinha & Claudia

The participants also did not lack in a response and thanked their teachers with a speech and handcrafts they had specifically produced for them.

                      

EOSS Consulting to Train 200 MSMEs in Angola

EOSS Consulting is delighted to expand its economic development and corporate social responsibility initaitives to Africa, beginning with the launch of the EOSS entrepreneurial development systems for micro, small and medium enterprises in Angola. As part of LNG’s initiatives to improve local economic development indicators and quality of life, EOSS will begin its first training series for Angolan entrepreneurs in Soyo in May 2011. With highest petroleum production in the region, Angola is one of Africa’s fastest growing economies. Yet it still grapples with high inequality, poverty and poor health and educational indicators, with a Human Development Index ranking of 143^rd in the world. The city of Soyo lies at the north of Angola, near the Congolese border, and holds some of the country’s greatest gas reserves. With LNGs production estimated to reach 5 million tons and the creation of thousands of local jobs, Soyo is slated to become one of the country’s centers of industrial growth. The EOSS entrepreneurial training system aims to help more local business become active collaborators in this growth, circulating more economic benefits to the base of the pyramid. More information on this project, and EOSS’ other engagements in lusaphone Africa, is soon to come!

EOSS Consulting and the Secretariat for Policies for Women:

EOSS Consulting has worked on issues of women’s economic empowerment since its inception. Whether conducting research for the World Bank or creating public policy plans for Rio’s municipalities, EOSS has leveraged gender and economic development as a core competency. Brazil is one of few countries in the region with a federal ministry for gender equity, influencing policy, financing programs and shifting for a more representative nation. EOSS Consulting is glad to partners with Secretariat for Policies for Women on various initiatives to empower women in Brazil, particularly women at the base of the pyramid. One of these initiatives is the Rio Professional Qualification Program, which train 1000 low-income women in Rio de Janeiro. Participants master entrepreneurial and vocational skills to help them grow businesses or improve professional mobility. We are proud to announce that we will soon be marketing these women’s products in our online store starting June 2011. More information soon to come!