Asplande’s Presentation
ASPLANDE – Assessoria & Planejamento para o Desenvolvimento, in English:
Consulting
& Planning in order to promote Development – was founded in 1992. Its
mission is to educate low income social groups, particularly women who are
heads of household, through planning, implementing and monitoring cooperative
and communitarian enterprises. These groups share the vision of an integral and
harmonic development. ASPLANDE has partnerships with ABONG (Brazilian
Association of Non Governmental Organizations) and with the Network ASHOKA.
Over the
years, ASPLANDE has concentrated its work on helping low income women who are
responsible for their family, in order to insert themselves in the working
context. For this purpose, ASPLANDE offers these women consulting services,
which stimulate these women to create their own cooperative enterprises.
Based on
this perspective, we believe the organization of Social Networks to be a key
factor in facilitating the integral organization of popular cooperatives. In
our view at ASPLANDE, Social Networks are democratic spaces which connect
people and units that share the same values and objectives. Regarding
organizational aspects, the most important characteristic of a network is an
absence of centralized power and hierarchical relations. All the “we’s” of the network represent a center of capability,
power and decision. The information flows are dynamic and transparent; they
stem from various points.
The essence
and beauty of the network reside in the possibility to create an environment
that allows creative talents to unfold. Thus, these women’s chances to reach
their own aims and objectives are enhanced.
The group Araçatiê
Presentation
People
studying and working with integral and harmonic development for over 20 years form
the group Araçatiê. Using a comprehensive
perspective, we focus on understanding the interface between environment and society.
We also analyze instruments of planning, evaluation and management oriented
towards sustainability.
We believe
that the planning process can be revitalized by incorporating the existing
complexities and uncertainties of the modern world. To restore a global vision,
we apply flexible and contemporary methodologies and instruments.
We discuss
and reflect on current issues concerning the environment, cultural diversity
and the dominant development model in our globalized society. As a part of this
global system, the weaknesses of solidarity-based relations, the loss of
security, and the ecological and social vulnerability turn citizens into
prisoners of risk, fear and individualism.
Araçatiê carries
out all of these aspects through our studies, projects and actions. We wish to
overcome the existing problems by suggesting possible actions that aim to enhance
the quality of life, boost individual and collective welfare, and citizen
development.
How Araçatiê works
We work in
an interdisciplinary manner, through projects that embrace various fields of action,
and that can be identified by their humanistic methodology. This enables us to consider
various social perspectives and the actual needs of society. The group Araçatiê is associated with Asplande,
an NGO that also works through interdisciplinary methods, conducting projects that
comprise countless activities.
What we do
Courses and workshops
Team
Gabriel Aguiar Rogério
Cassel
Musical
and Biology Educator
Agronomist
Luciana Coni
Costa Suzi
de Mattos
Laywer Geograph
Coordination Assistant
Tereza Coni
Monica
de Almeida
Geograph
Women’s Cooperative
Network of
the metropolitan area of
In 1997,
with the goal of optimizing the training and consulting process, ASPLANDE
created the Network Rede Cooperativa de Mulheres Empreendedoras da Região Metropolitana
do
Women’s Cooperative Network addresses cooperative productive
units for different enterprises, such as cooking, handcraft art, sewing, and
recycling services. The majority of the groups do not receive any kind of help.
Through the Network, they find a space in which they can establish
relationships of mutual exchange and partnerships, can obtain information and
training, and consulting and marketing. They also acquire the possibility to
organize collective commercialization.
At the
moment, the Network includes around 20 production and service enterprises–
handcraft art, sewing, cooking and general services. Usually, these enterprises
are formed by three to five participants. The Network has monthly meetings,
every last Thursday of the month, in ASPLANDE’s office.
The Network
applies a new model of organizing labor relations—within the Solidarity
Economy—which is established by organizing Popular Cooperatives. This approach
implies immediate consequences, such as rearranging the way that tasks are
distributed, and reorganizing the manner in which people fulfill these tasks.
This method also requires transforming management into a more participative,
democratic and transparent process.
On the other
hand, this application also entails changes on other levels that are achieved
much more slowly and are much more difficult to perceive and, consequently,
measure in a quantitative way.
These
changes are linked to re-evaluating traditional values and to discovering new
forms of relationships, not only at work, but also in familiar, social and
political contexts.
On a
rational and intellectual level, these new concepts are learned, but their comprehension is a very slow process.
Such a learning process is only significant if it causes a change in attitude.
This change must not only be intellectual, but also visceral in order to
involve the organism as a whole.
Ever since
its creation, the Network has been a space that stimulates a permanent learning
process and treats issues such as:
The
importance of initiating a process that applies democratic participation in
managing cooperative units; overcoming conflicts in the interpersonal
relationships within and outside of the working environment; always considering
human diversity in all aspects; the importance of activism in social movements
that constructively discuss issues such as environment, gender, human rights,
fair trade and critical consumption, among others.
Every year,
the Network selects a central topic with the objective of enhancing this
understanding in a theoretical and practical dimension.