by João Marcelo
SAN PAOLO OF BRAZIL – Eduardo Lyra dreamed of changing the reality of the place where he was born and, for this, in 2011, he started giving lectures in schools in the periphery to talk and motivate young people. Since then, the project has expanded. The result was the creation, on the east side of the city of São Paulo, of the Ngo Gerando Falcões.
In an interview with the Dire Agency, the NGO’s director of operations, Nina Rentel, spoke about the organization’s history and objectives. “Gerando Falcões was born in the far east of São Paulo, in a region known as Alto Tietê, where we are today. It all started with the dream of our founders to change the reality of the favelas in which they were born. So, we started doing workshops of culture, sport, professional qualification and, little by little, we were looking for ways to strengthen the institution’s management. We were never satisfied with the fact that the third sector is seen as something that is not so good or that does not offer excellent management It is a stigma that exists. Today we are an institution that serves approximately 1700 children and young people with a lot of quality “.
The director says that after reaching this number of people, other questions came up. “When we reached that level, there was a provocation in the sense of how we can take this experience to other Brazilian leaders and enhance other social projects that can impact other favelas in our territory? So we are looking for people who have this desire to change reality of the country and, with that, create a network that works towards this objective “.
Another important issue for the generation and circulation of income within the favelas is entrepreneurship. In 2020, there was a 14.8% increase in the number of individual microentrepreneurs (MEI’s), according to data from the Entrepreneur Portal (official website of the federal government for the registration of MEI’s).