Ingá Project supports female leadership in communities around Juriti

Ingá Project supports female leadership in communities around Juriti
The gender workshop / Photo: IJUS
Videos present women’s actions to increase their involvement in collective decisions

March, 2022 - Ingá Project made a series of videos to celebrate International Women’s month and bring attention to local actions that improve female projects of Juriti, located in the state of Pará, within the Amazon territory. 

One of the videos (watch here) brings testimonies from women who participated in the gender workshop and shared their experiences to strengthen their participation in the community’s decisions. “I learned that we have a voice and a vote. We also need to work together”, said farm worker Rosinete Prata. “Whatever we didn’t know, we learned in practice”, added farm worker Raimunda Marques. 

According to Rafela da Cunha Pinto, socioenvironmental analyst at International Education Institute of Brazil (IEB), the workshop was an opportunity to account for the project’s impacts. “These social roles they learn throughout their lives can affect their participation in the public sphere, the organizations and institutions.”

Maria Melo, president of Juruti’s Institute for Sustainability (IJUS) said a highlight of the workshop was the debate around women and their contribution to the community: “It was interesting because we were able to reach out to them during the workshop.”

Ingá project - Amazon’s Benchmark for Sustainability and Management is led by IJUS with investments from USAID/Brazil and Partners for the Amazon Platform (PPA), Alcoa and Alcoa Institute. It also partners with IEB, Vitória Régia Institute (IVR) and Alliance Biodiversity International/CIAT. 

Since August, 2021, the project has been supporting the formation of human capital focusing on the land’s management and leadership autonomy, as well as forestry conservation and protection of degraded areas. 

The initiative focuses on strengthening local entrepreneurship and structuring indicators of sustainable development for the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. 

There is another video showing what the Ingá Project represents in local women’s lives. Juruti city has 830,500 hectares and a population of 59 thousand, 60% of which are in rural areas throughout over 200 communities. 

Ingá Project’s priority involves three regions within the area - the agroextractivist settlement project (PEAEX) in Cumuri, partnering with of The Cumuri Rural Communities Association (ACOGLEC) and the Cumuri Coop; PEAEX Prudente and Monte Sinai partnering with Community Associations of Prudente and Monte Sinai (ACOPRUMS); and Jara’s Environmental Protection Area (APA), where the initiative relies on the Conservatorship Unit counsel. 

Studies - The Ingá Project’s includes another initiative named  Rural Participatory Diagnostic (DPR) whose goal is input information on communities and families who own land in rural Curumucuri. Another video released in March shows the DPR actions. This enables a better diagnostic for housing, sanitation, and other information. 

"With our work we can anticipate the communities wishes, thoughts and dreams concerning territory development", says one of the DPR applicants Sara Melo da Silva.

For more information on the Ingá project in PPA’s website.