Mission

The challenge

Our work at Vaga Lume takes place in the Legal Amazon, a very important region of Brazil: it covers 61% of our territory and is the home of 24 million Brazilians. Besides, it occupies ⅕ of the planet’s forest reserve and provides ⅕ of the available fresh water on Earth.

But, at the same time, the Legal Amazon has a low Human Development Index. For example, Brazil’s HDI is 0.754, while in the Northern Region the HDI is around 0.667. On top of that, the ten lowest HDI of the country are all municipalities within the Northern Region¹, and 20% of its population is functional illiterate².

Source: Atlas of Human Development in Brazil (PNUD - 2013).

Mission

To empower children living in rural remote communities of the Amazon by promoting reading and management of community libraries as a space of knowledge sharing.

Principles

  • Humanism We believe people are the most powerful agents to transform their reality.
  • Child For us, everything starts with children.
  • Reading It is a powerful social transformation tool.
  • Interest We start from local interest so as to guarantee the ownership of the projects by the communities.
  • Cultural Diversity We acknowledge differences and similarities as means to improve the coexistence in a more plural world.
  • Local Culture We cherish local culture as a way to construct identity and promote diversity.
  • Mediation We build bridges between people, communities, generations and different types of knowledge.
  • Listening We understand the other and co-create, establishing meaningful dialogue.