Even though I didn’t go to the Amazon this time in Brazil, I still got to see a bit of the Brazilian wildlife, especially birds. Highlights included seeing blue and golden macaws and toucans in trees in the wild. I also saw a lot of different birds and wildlife at the Parque das Aves and the Sao Paulo Zoo.
Macaws, Parque Das Aves
A Blue-and-Gold Macaw Couple in the Wild (look at the top of the leafless tree), Cerrado, Goias
Monkeys in bamboo tree, Jardim Botanico, Rio de Janeiro
Toucan, Parque das Aves, Iguazu
Monkey in bamboo tree, Jardim Botanico, Rio de Janeiro
Jaguar, Sao Paulo Zoo
Coati, Iguazu Falls
Coati on the hunt for food, Iguazu Falls
Couple of Hyacinth Macaws, Parque das Aves
Blue-and-Gold Macaw, Goais
White Tiger Basking in the Sun, Sao Paulo Zoo
Blue-and-Gold Macaw, Goias
Toucan in a tree (look for the orange beak), Iguazu Falls
During my semester abroad, I managed to fit in a few trips between my studies and work, which I never blogged about, and wanted to highlight here.
Visited Brasilia, and some other cities in Goias state: Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, is a really interesting city with a very futuristic vibe: the city was designed to look like an airplane and in logical and confusing fashion, the streets are identified by a series of letters and numbers such as SDN 409. I also saw a lot of waterfalls in the nearby national park (Parque Nacional da Chapada dos Veadeiros).
Brasilia, from Above
Saw the Iguazu Falls and hopped over to Argentina: The Iguazu waterfalls are an amazing natural wonder, being taller than Niagara Falls and wider than Victoria Falls. The Argentinian side of the Iguazu Falls is cheaper to stay in and more awe-inspiring. Also, the Parque das Aves on the Brazilian side of the waterfalls was definitely worth the visit and featured a large variety of birds from all over South American (and the world).
Iguazu Falls
Visited Rio de Janeiro: My favorite attraction in Rio was the beautiful Jardim Botanico (Botanical Gardens) which has monkeys, bamboo trees, an orchidarium, a medicinal plant garden, and a Japanese garden. I think one of the reasons I liked the Jardim Botanico so much was because I had missed seeing greenery while living in industrial metropolis Sao Paulo. Another attraction in Rio that I recommend is the Museu H. Stern and Museu Amsterdam Sauer, which both feature large gemstone exhibits. As many of the world’s gemstones are mined in Brazil, it was interesting to see exhibits by these top Brazilian jewelry designers. The vibrant and colorful steps in Santa Theresa/Lapa neighborhood of Rio, Escadaria Selarón, were another highlight and reminded me a bit of Gaudi’s architecture in Park Guell in Barcelona.
Escadaria Selarón
Overall, I most enjoyed going to Iguazu Falls and Rio de Janeiro, and definitely recommend seeing the two if you have a chance to visit Brazil.
Now that my assignment for F123 has ended, and because I didn’t provide many updates during the whirlwind of the last part of my assignment, here are some of the highlights of my work during my FMS assignment in Brazil for F123 below:
Volunteered at the Social Enterprise World Forum conference: A conference focused on social entrepreneurship that brought together experts in the field from all over the world and was hosted by impact investor NESsT in Rio de Janeiro. This was a really exciting opportunity and it gave me a great excuse to skip classes for a week and take some extra time on the weekend to visit Rio. I also got to meet a former FMS scout from the prior term in Brazil and another MIIS student who had flown all the way from California for the conference. I met a lot of interesting individuals in the field of impact investment and social entrepreneurship, and got some helpful contacts for F123. Moreover, I met a few graduates from my Master’s program at FGV. To learn more about this conference, read this former scout and volunteer’s take on it here: http://blogs.miis.edu/elmapaulauskaite/, as well as another fellow volunteer’s post here: http://ong-entreprises.blog.youphil.com/archive/2012/11/16/a-premiere-for-social-business-in-brazil.html.
Attended F123′s ceremony for the Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2013: This ceremony was held in true Brazilian fashion and was a kind of Oscar’s award ceremony for social entrepreneurs in Brazil. And F123 won the Social Entrepreneur of the Future Award! Watch the video below from the ceremony (sorry, it’s in Portuguese): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rJVSsrbLAw&feature=plcp and see Fernando Botelho’s acceptance of the award below. Thanks to everyone who helped with voting for F123! (We ended up getting the 3rd most votes of all the candidates with 14.7% of the total votes, which was great considering the relative size of F123 compared to other nominees, and was a factor in winning the award.)
Fernando Accepts Social Entrepreneur of the Future Award
Conducted a market sizing and market forecast for potential sales in all Spanish-, Portuguese-, and Spanish-speaking countries worldwide and got some very interesting results for F123.
Managed 2 Virtual FMS scouts who helped with translation, social media marketing, and marketing to NGO’s in French-speaking countries (I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to manage people again, although I had never done so virtually before).
Helped with social media marketing and tried to establish partnerships with NGO’s throughout Latin America
Helped establish a partnership between F123 with a university in the US and Brazil (which is still in progress)
F123′s founder, Ashoka fellow Fernando Botelho, was selected as one of the six finalists for the eighth edition of the Prêmio Empreendedor Social (the Social Entrepreneur Award). This competition is renowned as one of the top social entrepreneurship awards in Latin America.
Fernando Botelho, Founder of F123
The criteria for selection in this competition include: 1) innovation, 2) sustainability, 3) direct social impact, 4) influence in public policy, 5) the social entrepreneur’s background, 6) scope and distribution, and 7) potential scalability.
F123 is extremely excited to have been selected as a finalist. The other finalists include: 1) Kaninde/Metareilá, which helps indigenous populations in the Amazon, 2) Instituto Chapada, which addresses the eradication of illiteracy, 3) Imaflora which helps with natural resource conservation projects, 4) Raízes, which is involved in sustainable tourism projects, and Graacc, a children’s cancer treatment hospital for low-income families.
F123 was founded by Fernando Botelho, an inspiring individual who is blind himself, to create software for the visually impaired at an affordable price, providing access to job and educational opportunities that they couldn’t otherwise easily attain. F123 software is a high-quality, low-cost software that enables the visually impaired to use computers via a USB flash drive or CD. Given that the competitor software on the market is extremely expensive and unaffordable for the average person in a developing country, F123 software can truly help address the low employment rate amongst the visually impaired in the developing world through this more affordable solution.
To vote for F123, go to http://f123.org/vote, scroll down and click on “Vote Neste Candidato” (Vote for this candidate).
After a great day at the beach in Guarujá, I went to my first favela (the Brazilian word for slum) today. What was I doing in a favela? Well, I was visiting a non-profit organization called Cidades sem Fome, which establishes urban gardens in favelas and schools. I am very critical of many social businesses and non-profit organizations, but I must say that I really liked Cidades sem Fome and think they are sincerely helping contribute to a better, more sustainable world. Cidades sem Fome transforms abandoned lots in favelas and poorer regions of Sao Paulo into gardens providing local inhabitants with fresh, organic fruits and vegetables and a source of income. A certain number of families are allocated the farmland and they then split the profit and food amongst themselves (Cidades sem Fome just invests the initial money into developing the land and doesn’t take any of the profits from the selling of the crops). During the visit, I visited their headquarters in Zona L’Este, 2 farms, and 1 school where they have established an urban garden. One of the farms that we visited was in a favela in Zona L’Este, and was on land that had previously been an unofficial landfill inside the favela, thus improving that area for the inhabitants.
Cidades Sem Fome also has established partnerships with a variety of schools as well and has urban gardens in nearly 30 schools in Sao Paulo, mostly in Zona L’Este (a poorer area of Sao Paulo). They also have one garden in a school in Jardim Paulista at the Helen Keller School for children with disabilities. In just 8 years, this non-profit has established 21 urban farms in favelas and around 30 gardens in schools in Sao Paulo, which I think is a great feat, in and of itself. If you are interested in learning more about this great non-profit, visit their website here: http://cidadessemfome.org/en/.
A local educational farming project at a school in Sao Paulo.
I am still starting up my work with F123, but so far a few exciting things have happened. After having had the opportunity to potentially go to the Unreasonable@Sea program (see previous post), I had my first meeting in person with the founders of F123. It turned out to be an exciting meeting in which I got to attend a videotaping of their upcoming promotional campaigns, in what looked like a real recording studio! I don’t currently have pictures, as my camera was malfunctioning, but I’ll post them once they send them to me. In the meantime, here is a picture of F123 being presented at a conference in Uruguay:
F123′s founder also made a presentation to the IT department of a large company here that is helping fund F123 through the Ashoka program, to garner interest from potential volunteers. I also have better defined what my work here will consist of, and I will be focusing primarily on marketing, social media marketing, and French translation work.
Sorry this is such a short post, but I’ll be posting more updates soon!
I have now been in Sao Paulo for 2 weeks, and though I am still finding it difficult to get adjusted to the 3rd largest city in the world, I have been enjoying my time in Brazil. Last week I tried both a samba and a capoeira class, and was surprised by which one I enjoyed the most.
Capoeira is a mix of dance and martial arts that was practiced in secret by the slaves in Brazil to defend themselves. The history of capoeira is pretty fascinating in and of itself, and it used to be illegal to practice in Brazil until 1940. The word capoeira refers to the low vegetation in the forests where the slaves used to practice in secret. Thus, when asked where a fellow slave was while practicing, they would say that they were in the capoeira, and later this term came to describe the practice itself.
My first capoeira class was fun, exhausting, and challenging, and I think it would be a good sport for me to continue, especially since I never learned how to do a cart-wheel and this would be a good opportunity to start. Here’s a video of capoeira, that explains a bit more about the history and shows the sport in practice.
As I love to dance, I was most looking forward to the samba class. But, after my first hour of samba no pé (the samba style made famous at Carnaval celebrations), I decided that I would prefer a partner dance to a solo one. I couldn’t find a good video to demonstrate it, but this should give you an idea:
So, I am going to try a samba de gafieira class next, which is one of the Brazilian samba partner dances. I’ll let you know how it goes, after the first class. See a video below:
But on another note, on Monday, I got a really exciting e-mail from my boss explaining that we might have the opportunity to do the Unresonable@Sea program and that, if I was interested, I could represent the company in the program. I was so excited because this is a unique and cool program that I was already interested in, but figured it was not something I could do since I didn’t have a social business when I first heard about it a few months ago.
The Unreasonable At Sea program, sponsored by the Unreasonable Institute and Semester At Sea, selects 10 social tech entrepreneurs to live on a boat with 20 mentors and sail to 14 countries around the globe. The idea is for the company to fast-track its expansion to international markets and to be able to learn first-hand from mentors and potential investors. So, when I learned I might be able to participate in the first ever program of Unreasonalbe@Sea, I couldn’t wait to do it. Here is a brief, 2-minute video that explains the program:
Unfortunately, our company wasn’t selected in the end for this round, but I look forward to other cool opportunities in the future.
Oh, and just for fun, here is a video I found of samba on point that I found (a mix of ballet and samba de gafieira):
Known for its cultural vibrancy, infamous Carnaval celebration, the Amazon, and sustainability, Brazil makes the short list of many adventurers, or at least it was on mine. That’s why when I was given the opportunity to go to Brazil as part of a graduate school study abroad program, I jumped at the opportunity to study in Brazil. While living in Sao Paulo, I will be completing my second Master’s degree.
A beautiful white sandy beach in the Galapagos Islands
Although I have never been to Brazil before, I did study abroad in Ecuador in college, but never ventured outside of the Ecuadorian borders. I had a great study abroad experience in Ecuador; following Darwin’s steps in the Galapagos Islands, swimming with piranha in the Amazon, living with a host family in Quito, and, my favorite, living in a small rural village of 100 people with no electricity, no hot water, and no modern technological devices for 1 month.
But being in Brazil this time will be quite different for several reasons:
I am not studying through a study abroad program but am directly enrolled in a top graduate school,
I don’t know the language of the country even though my entire degree is in Portuguese, and
I will be working for a social entrepreneur while here.
In addition to studying, I am participating in an exciting program called the Frontier Market Scouts Program (FMS), which places young professionals in the impact investing field around the world. Through FMS, I will be working as the third employee for a small social start-up called F123, which creates affordable software for the visually impaired, based in Curitiba, Brazil.
I look forward to sharing my adventures and experiences working in the social entrepreneurship sector in Brazil with you!
