CEN Gears Up for Action

Providing Opportunity for Brazilian Communities

by Julia Rice

I belong to Generation Me, the iGeneration, or is it Generation Now—whatever society is calling us up-and-coming, early-spring budding, college graduates these days.  I am the generation that is expected to have a college degree, even if I simply enter the food service industry upon graduation.

<Young Girl in one of the  Rio Tapajós Communities

A young woman my age living in a rural community in the Brazilian Amazon, however, faces entirely different expectations. If she were like most residents, she will have had only four years of formal education -  and possibly less.

So here I am, sitting with a college degree tucked nicely between the nodes of my brain, while people in the Brazilian Amazon are lucky to receive a high school diploma. Opportunity is spread unequally throughout the world, like peanut butter unevenly smothered in between two slices of bread, leaving the sandwich patchy and full of dry spots.

One of CEN’s central goals to introduce opportunity into small communities in the Brazilian Amazon.  The early phases of our program, Creating a Culture of Learning and Empowerment in the Amazon Region (cCLEAR), are designed to tackle some of the core problems that inhibit economic development in rural areas of the world.

Three major problems found in the Brazilian Amazon are: (1) the scarcity of economic options in their villages, (2) a tendency to depend on others to solve their problems, and (3) the loss of youth who migrate to overpopulated cities for greater economic opportunity. cCLEAR is designed to address each of these problems.

For example, a local person could earn $25 by selling a jaguar skin.  But to do so, he would have to kill the jaguar. With CEN’s guidance, he could see the living jaguar as a greater economic resource. Live jaguars might attract television companies and photographers for nature stories; tourists will be enticed to witness jaguars in the wild. The jaguar thus becomes a more sustainable resource, worth far more alive than dead. With the help of CEN, residents will better understand their markets and get the most out of their resources.

<Pig Farm in Xixuau

This year, CEN will develop a set of activities and other resources that will help participants from two Amazon communities develop skills – and which will be able to be replicated in other communities.  These skills include leadership, critical thinking, management, problem-solving and evaluation, as well as building confidence. Next year CEN hopes to begin a second phase to fine-tune skills specifically related to building entrepreneurship and improving basic education in the communities. By 2010, CEN plans to begin the program in other locations, possibly including Mozambique and South Asia.  CEN will eventually disengage from the original communities, leaving behind a sustainable infrastructure. cCLEAR’s purpose is to help isolated communities reach the point at which they can become self-reliant and drive their own development objectives.


During the first phase there will be about 30 direct participants in the program, but the impact of cCLEAR, will be greater. Participants will serve as role models in their communities. It is hoped that by mid 2010, most residents within participating communities, approximately 1400 people, will benefit from the program.

CEN has already helped communities help themselves by encouraging the organization of public workshops in Suruacá, one of the communities where we’re working.  We’ve helped one participant triple his income from the handicrafts he produces. We’ve started the Rede Amazônia, an online and off-line network of rural communities that fosters collaboration and interdependence. We’re also helping Suruacá spearhead and manage a micro-hydroelectric dam project that will someday generate electricity for the community. They are leading this effort on their own rather than depending on outsiders to do it for them.

My Dad is encouraging me to apply for jobs that will use my college education, even if it doesn’t pay very much.  I am reminded again of uneven opportunity, and I begin to feel guilty.  I wonder what the people in the Brazilian Amazon are doing right now; I know they are doing something, because they are like me, living.