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The Current Phase and Future Prospects
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The
Fourth Phase
(2002 -
ongoing) |
"Iniciando a
multiplicação da experiência e mudando de escala" |
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The initiatives
implemented over the years by Health & Happiness, jointly with 31
communities, have allowed the construction of highly adapted and
demonstrative social methodologies and technologies, with low cost and
high impact, that can be replicated to other areas and contexts, either in
their entirety – Comprehensive Development – or partially through the
sub-components of health, income generation, youth, children and women.
It is in the light of
this challenge that in 2002 Health & Happiness entered its fourth
strategic phase – Sustainability and Integration with Public Policies –
focusing on the consolidation, perpetuation and multiplication of the
programs initiated, reinforcing the concept of working through networks
and establishing inter-institutional partnerships with government and
non-governmental organizations and grassroots movements.
The geographic area
where Health & Happiness works was modified to conform to government
programs, with an expansion in 2003 to 143 communities (29,000 persons),
covering the entire population of the two Conservation Areas - Tapajós
National Forest (FLONA) and Tapajós/Arapiuns Extractivist Reserve (RESEX)
– and the surrounding micro-regions.
In order to facilitate
the process of multiplication of the experiences, partnerships were
formalized with IBAMA/Federal Government for the activities involving the
Conservation Areas, and with the Municipalities for the activities under
municipal responsibility such as health and education. To adapt the
mechanisms for participatory assessment and planning to the new geographic
scope, the old Intercommunity Council was restructured to create a new
forum composed of the representative grassroots organizations, such as the
Rural Workers Unions and the Associations of the communities in the FLONA,
RESEX and Settlements. The interdisciplinary programs of PSA were modified
for interaction with Government, incorporation of new sub-components, and
training of trainers through the network of local multiplier agents.
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Since then, the
expansion of the work to the new communities has been based
principally on the Health Program, oriented in this phase to the
consolidation of an adapted demonstrative model for primary care,
which is participatory and integrated with the public system. The
program began to involve and train a network of health agents from
throughout the area covered, and to this was added the team of
midwives, organized through the creation of the Association “Mãos que
Aparam Vidas” (Hands that Secure Lives), the first of its kind in the
West of the state of Pará. Along with the preventative campaigns,
basic sanitation infrastructure is being implemented in order to
ensure that by 2007, all 4711 families have access to clean drinking
water and adequate toilets.
OBJECTIVES FOR BASIC SANITATION
Confronting the causes of infant mortality
 
In order to improve
the conditions for providing services, Rural Health Clinics are being
built to complement existing ones in partnership with the Municipal
Secretariats, through the incorporation of an “ambulance boat” for
transporting the ill, and a hospital boat for providing regular
medical and dentistry services to the larger population centers which
lack these types of services. For communicating emergencies and for
distance orientation, radios powered by solar energy were installed
which facilitated communication between the communities, the hospital
in Santarém, and the headquarters of Health & Happiness. |
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Hospital Ship (operating in
2006):
 goal
of 2500 families with regular access to medical and dental services. |
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Health Clinic: seven units
built by 2005 in partnership with governments in strategic centers
in rural areas, improving access to services in isolated areas. |
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Water Supply Micro-System:
20 systems implemented by 2005, bringing
running water to the house of each family.
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Semi-artesian wells:
more than 150 wells drilled by 2006, benefiting areas not
reached by running water.
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 Chlorine
Kit: using common salt and electrolysis provided by a small solar panel,
it produces sodium hypochlorite to be used in a concentration of two drops
per liter for treating drinking water. |
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 Sanitary
Stones: built through collective work parties, they cover the toilet
pits and reduce risks of contamination.
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The
Sector of Education, Culture and
Communication,
along with bringing the Mocorongo Circus to the new areas as a way to
support the educational process, is expanding the number of rural branches
of young reporters from the Mocoronga Network though introducing community
radio systems and kits for creating local newspapers in strategic centers
of the current coverage area, which enables an exchange between the
recently involved communities and the older ones. |
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MOCORONGA NETWORK
Expanding communication in support of youth and
community
education
New
information and communications technologies were also
incorporated into the Network, with the implementation, at this
point experimental, of two digital inclusion initiatives – one
in the FLONA and the other in the RESEX – through the
installation of community tele-centers equipped with computers
with internet access.
The closer
relationship with the Municipal Education Secretariats has been
the principal avenue to ensuring the sustainability of the
activities – both those for popular communication aimed at
youth, and those of art-education and environment in child
education – with teachers being increasingly involved,
indicating that there can be a gradual integration with public
policies in the region. |
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Radio-communicators:
more than 70 systems installed facilitate communications
between the remote communities and urban centers. |
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Community Radio Kits:
sound system that allows the production and dissemination of
educational content and local culture |
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Digital
Inclusion: Cultural Tele-centers with internet access.
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As a strategy for
multiplying the promising initiatives implemented in new areas, the
sector of Forest Economy strengthened its
participation in the FLONA and RESEX Management and Advisory Councils,
and has been actively contributing to the ongoing construction and
monitoring of environmental policies and management plans for these
Conservation Areas. Aware that improvements in family income require
time, the activities of agro-ecology, forest management, SAF’s and
raising of small animals have been intensified to speed up this
process with investments in processing and environmental certification
to add more value to products sold.
MICRO-CREDIT
A promising and sustainable initiative for Income Generation
 
New sub-components
of the Program were also introduced, such as education workshops for
the work aimed at groups of women and youth, a pilot initiative in
community-based ecotourism in partnership with Project Baggage (Projeto
Bagagem), a specific line of micro-credit for Young Entrepreneurs,
and the implementation of renewable energy systems to support
productive activities. The current and future challenge is to
strengthen community organizations to enable the local population to
improve their management capacity and to ensure long term economic and
environmental sustainability. |
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Micro-Credit: supporting
the creation of small businesses. |
Rural Electrification: creating the basic conditions for
development
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Community Based Ecotourism:
in partnership with the “Projeto Bagagem”, tourism packages that
include the natural beauties of the region and learning the
realities of those living along the rivers of the Amazon region. |
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There is still a long
way to go to consolidate the process begun in this Phase IV of
multiplication of the work to reach a greater number of beneficiaries.
Nevertheless, the experience is allowing considerable learning in regards
to the challenge of increasing the scale of the work and enabling the
widespread replication of the programs, without reducing the quality of
the activities, without a proportional increase in operational and
management costs, and without losing their demonstrative character. At the
end of this phase, an overall systematization and documentation of all the
experience accumulated over the years will be carried out, incorporating
the lessons learned in order to offer support to public and private
agencies and social movements in recreating the Health & Happiness Model
(full or partial) in other contexts and/or regions (Phase V –
Comprehensive Synthesis and Replication of Idea).
At any rate, some
assumptions in Phase 5 have already begun to have impact on the present
context. As a result of the credibility and results achieved, the social
technologies developed, media coverage and awards received, there are
increasing demands on Health & Happiness to provide support to other
governmental and non-governmental institutions. The expansion of its
coordination and outreach capacity has also been strengthening its role in
contributing to the formulation of policies for the sustainable
development of the Amazon region, including through initiating the
movement for Local Agenda 21s in the municipalities of Belterra and
Santarém.
As an active participant
in the various inter-institutional forums – Amazon Working Group,
Brazilian Forum of NGOs, etc. – in 2002 in São Paulo, Health & Happiness
held the event “AmazoniaBr”, which received more than 220,000 visitors,
seeking to present to the principal economic center of Brazil a realistic
vision of Amazonia and its inhabitants, as well as the positive
experiences of sustainable economic development in the region. The
expectation is that this event will be reproduced as a traveling
exhibition in other centers in Brazil and abroad, as has already occurred
in Campos de Jordão and in Rio de Janeiro, in 2004.
The concern continues to
be the pursuit of a sustainable future for Amazônia in the various
dimensions – social, cultural, economic, environmental and political – and
the role of Health & Happiness in this process will be to continue
promoting cooperation between institutions and the construction of model
practical experiences that can be multiplied and contribute as
demonstration activities in improvement social and environmental policies
for the region. |
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