Message-ID: <9509031931.AA09209@cr-df.rnp.br> Date: Sun, 3 Sep 1995 16:31:21 EST From: Companheiros das Americas <mailto:poa-bsb@CR-DF.RNP.BR> Subject: Considerations from Brasilia To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Dear Friends,
At first, thank everybody from many countries who have written
to us telling about their interest on our news from Brazil and
offering their collaboration.
And some are already collaborating, as Lew, from Chicago IL
(always sending thoughtful insights about our communicative-
participative methods to raise real time collaboration from the
NET) and James, from Fairfax VA (our home page volunteer builder and
provider - http://osf1.gmu.edu/~jyven.) Besides, of course, our
Partners friends in D.C. - volunteer members and professional staff.
I'd like to say that here, in Brazil, in many years, I have never
found out such a serious, persistent and efficient people as I am
finding there, in the USA.
Nevertheless, I keep noticing that all those development agencies
(and agents) present on our DEVEL-L, ENTER-L and PARTNERS-L prefer
working in more simple (or homogeneous, or yet "natural") countries,
as Zaire, Yemen, Nepal, Paraguay, Bolivia, Russia and new east
European countries, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe, India etc. It is really
very unusual to find there some project developed or job opportunity
offered in Brazil. Why? Why don't they propose themselves to work here,
to face all this cultural and racial complexity, all these local
menaces to the global environment, all this violence and corruption,
all this cultural degradation and treasures? I understand their
hesitation to face the most unfair and tragic wealthy concentration
ever (according World Bank recent report)? Or to face the cultural
decaying and violence that sprung here when mass media and advertising
have exposed the illiterate descendants of the greatest slave nation
of the modern age (to whom was ever denied instruction, education and
dignity) to highly consumist and egotist standards of being. (Most TV
films and ads come from the US)
And what we are now living here is just what you will be living soon,
if we don't undertake together the necessary changing, here and there
and everywhere. Brazil is too big to be left alone. A very expressive
amount of the world tilling lands is here, as the fresh water's, too.
An expressive amount of the Earth nature biodiversity is also here,
and here there are still native indians never contacted by the
"civilization", living over mineral ores so precious and abundant we
could never properly evaluate.
So, our ultimate plan is to start a collaborative international
project in Brasilia, capital of Brazil, by gathering together a never
seen developmental coalition with an objective: to support an
integrative networking linking the present ongoing and future social
projects. This network could help them to increase their productivity
in many ways - and their changing impact in the whole society would be
many times unfolded. This socio-cultural-environmental changing
would reflect around the country and then around other Latin America
countries and further in the third world, while American organizations
would promote similar movement there in the US, to be reflected upon
Europe and Asia.
I can't foresee another path to significantly change the world
enough to make it a healthy and secure place for our descendants.
A global changing process demands - to be feasible - focal pilot
places to be changed from the worst to the best. I if could do this,
we would be sowing hope all over humanity, and the world could start
to change in a significative way and viable speed. We are just
proposing that US and Brazil must be among the very first to start
this changing, and they must do it together.
One example about how far we are still from a more effective
collaborative way of working: here, in Brasilia, we develop a
project on citizenship development funded by Partners of the
Americas and - mainly - by USAID. But USAID never called us to
talk about their other projects and programs going on Brasilia,
so we could articulate some common objectives and resources.
I am getting to know more about USAID programs on the Internet
than locally, through the official contacts we (didn't) met since
we are being funded by them. Imagine the opposite: every agency
working in Brasilia well informed about each others' programs,
and implementing together a scale economy by integrating activities,
mainly those concerning social communication with the society and
within the communities.
I hope hear from you soon, please. These matters are very important
to us, here, and maybe to you, there.
.