Rural Curvelo, Brazil

We were out of the CPCD office in the countryside the last few days in Curvelo, about a 3 hour drive from Belo Horizonte (BH) on both paved and rough dirt roads. CPCD has an office and consults on the operation of a cooperative located in Curvelo named dedo de gente (literally fingers of the people). CPCD helped create the cooperative, which is an arts and crafts institution that employs the students from the CPCD community education programs and community center. The students run the cooperative, vote, and have a say in the day to day operations, and share any end of year surplus. They have fabrication facilities and retail stores (see the pics below) in Curvelo and Aracuai, Minas Gerais (a Brazilian state - "MG"). Sales of the cooperative in 2007 were about R$425,000, which is about USD 265,000 - impressive for a group of kids who grew up in and were educated mostly by CPCD (and the official local school system). By visiting the 2 development projects in Curvelo and Aracuai, we will experience first hand the results and progress made by CPCD and the cooperative over the years. We can of course offer encouragement, a comparison and contrast to life in two other counties (the USA and Switzerland), and share thoughts about opportunities for the dedo de gente cooperative. We'd call this a "functional analysis" in transfer pricing lingo (as some 0f you might appreciate). If we can share ideas and help increase the visibility of both CPCD and dedo de gente (specifically requested by us), we will have succeeded.


Below are pics from the trip...enjoy.
















Paper boxes made at the boxing facility of the cooperative for a customer





















A pizza box cut and printed by the teenagers at the box fabrication facility of the cooperative. They have a silkscreen facility that enables printing. Bia is one of their clients.












The woodworking shop of the cooperative - located in an old slaughterhouse from the 1920's.






















A table in the process of manufacture at the wood working shop of the cooperative. The teenagers make surprising high quality pieces out of . All is for sale and they ship to the USA...



See www.dedodegente.com.br




























































Didier, or is that Forrest Gump?, at the woodworking shop with a couple of the teenage craftsmen from the cooperative. Notice that due to the climate, there are no glass windows - but rather wooden slats.














































Drying thatch to make brooms behind the barbed wire(see the brooms - the finished product in the background, they look like bushes in this pic).











































This is the kitchen in the Curvelo CPCD children's center. The food is grown in the garden of the children's center. And, the children help in the garden to learn how to till the soil, plant, and harvest the fruits and vegatables. These plates were prepared with food from the garden, picked by the kids during the morning. Students also help in the kitchen and learn how to prepare food, cook, and clean.




























Boiling over a charcoal fire select wild herbs from the local fields and woods in a sugar solution (lots of raw sugar cane grows in Brazil) for treating flu like symptoms. The fire/furnace is made from a discarded oil can filled with concrete. The charcoal is scrap wood from the steel coaking facility down the road.






































The kids in a smaller town named Estiva, near Curvelo, who made this wagon from a discarded plastic beer crate.









































The teenagers at iron working shop at the cooperative. They sell the artwork in the retail shop.





















Teenagers at the cooperative preparing a type of squash picked from the CPCD garden for canning - and sale thru the cooperative.


































Teenagers in another fabrication shop at the cooperative making paper mache bird houses. The goal is sustainability and efficiency - the scrap paper is sourced from the box making facility at the cooperative.




































The teenagers specializing in sewing, knitting, and quilt making preparing table placemats for sale at the cooperative.



























Lunch at the CPCD facility, prepared by the kids, from food from the garden. Flavia, our awesome CPCD host, is the woman in the red shirt at the right. The teenage boys work in the cooperative (when not in formal school) making the various items described above.





















That's all for now - we have many more pictures, but this should give you a flavor of the Curvelo experience and the operations of CPCD and the cooperative.