Each regional office makes grants in fields that most effectively address problems in that region. In the Brazil office, we support efforts in four key areas:
Environment and Development
Brazil’s Amazon River basin is a region of extreme poverty, inequality, agrarian conflict and environmental degradation. Our work there supports initiatives to alleviate poverty and preserve the environment in the most critical area of the Deforestation Belt, where urbanization and timber cutting are rampant. We help communities address these issues by supporting the efforts of traditional peoples—including rubber-tappers, riverside communities, peasants, indigenous peoples and rural Afro-descendants (“quilombolas”)—to protect their land, use natural resources to improve their livelihoods, and participate in the policymaking process related to land use.
Governance and Civil Society
We make grants to strengthen participation in democracy with the goal of reducing social injustice and inequality. Our support focuses on three areas: participative democracy and equity; the international capacity of organizations; and public security.
Human Rights
We focus our support on two main areas. We help develop human rights infrastructure by making grants to organizations that draw attention to extreme cases of human rights abuses in the country, and we help combat race and gender discrimination by supporting organizations that work on behalf of women and Afro-Brazilians as well as institutions that promote debate on affirmative action at Brazilian universities. We also support research on discrimination and foster debate on new public policies.
Sexuality and Reproductive Health
We make grants that focus on increasing public understanding of the role of sexuality and reproductive health in human fulfillment and development, as well as its interrelationship with equitable social change. We support research, programs and policy advocacy aimed at strengthening awareness and understanding of gender and sexuality issues and how they relate to the larger socioeconomic context among disadvantaged youth. We also support initiatives aimed at strengthening and expanding the Brazilian response to HIV/AIDS to better reach and care for those who remain underserved.