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

 

  • Training activities through courses, instructive workshops and lectures; courses pertain to the institutions’ particular interests
  • Social-environmental characterization and diagnostics; elaborating action plans and projects that focus on municipalities and micro-regions
  • Social-environmental studies and research
  • Studies, research and diagnostics about agricultural production and rural life
  • Consulting the sustainability field and evaluating social projects
  • Educational and cultural activities, including environmental education

 

 

 

 

 

 

Courses and workshops

 

  • Development and Sustainability – Tereza Coni
  • Methodology of Socio-environmental Analysis for Environmental Studies – Tereza Coni
  • Mathematics of a Sustainable Cooperative Unit – Rogério Cassel
  • Pedagogical Workshop of Environmental Education – Suzi de Mattos
  • Pedagogical Workshop of Rhythms and Percussion – Gabriel Aguiar
  • Conversation Sessions and Histories – Identity – "Knowledges" and “Makeledges" – Poetic Dimension, Lightness and the Art of Enjoying Life – Maria Dolores Campos
  •  Human Values to Affirm Sustainable Development – Izabel N. Reis

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 Rio de Janeiro

 

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 Rio de Janeiro (Women’s Cooperative Network of the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro). The Network aims to contribute to the fortification of popular cooperatives formed primarily by women.

 

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.