Summary

Water – In this International Year of Freshwater the magazine analyses the freshwater resources issue. According to the United Nations, the growing global freshwater scarcity, caused by pollution, waste and consumption increase, which doubles every twenty years, poses a real threat to mankind. Still there is another danger: transnational corporations have mounted an assault on water resources sector. Brazil, possessing the largest freshwater reserves in the planet, is an important target in the global water market, which generates annual revenues of US$ 400 billion.

Software industry – Among the emergent countries Brazil is today, along with China and India, one of the most promising producers of software in the world. The national industry of software has been having a bigger share of the country marketplace, and now it is preparing to fight to get control of a more significant share of the global business, estimated in US$ 300 billion per year.

Child labour – Though the child labour is prohibited by law in Brazil, there are many children who have to work hard to help their families get money, preventing them from attending school. Because of it the social society organizations are engaged in pursuing alternatives of getting income for the very poor families, as well as in making people aware of not employing infantile and juvenile work.

Society – To the prisoners the family is a matter of the greatest importance: the maintenance of strong family ties largely increase their chance of reintegration into society on release; the weak ones can lead them back to a life of crime. The prisoners’ families in turn become victims of prejudice, and afraid of finding themselves discriminated against within the community, most time they try to hide the fact that a relative is in prison.

Employment – The solidary economy in Brazil has in the universities an important partner. Supported by them the so-called Technological Incubators of Popular Cooperatives are playing a major role in developing self-management enterprises in a period of shrinkage of job market.

Folklore – Nazare da Mata, located 80 kilometers from Recife, the capital city of the State of Pernambuco in Brazilian northeastern region, is fighting to become the town of rural maracatu – a kind of regional dance. Bearing it in mind, it is being built the Lanceiros Park, a site in which the maracatu groups will be giving performances during all year, not only at the carnival time as it usually happens. The initiative is intended to protect this cultural tradition as well as give an impulse to local tourism.

Brazil – In the State of Acre in the northern area of the country, people – the majority of them organized in cooperatives –, living on extractive and collecting activities, have developed a new concept: the florestania – formed by the words forest and citizenship. It means the pride in living in the forest, interacting rationally with it, and challenging the usual urban conception of progress.

Citizenship – The magazine Ocas" is published on behalf of and sold by homeless people, in order to help them earn an income, regain self-esteem and reintegrate into society. The magazine has succeeded in achieving its purpose, and has earned the vendor’s trust and caught the public’s interest. The organization is part of a world network of street papers, with a circulation of 26 million copies per year.

Architecture – Miguel Juliano is one of Brazil’s most accomplished architects. A self-taught man – he got his degree when he was 35, after having projected many buildings –, of recognized professional competence, he is responsible for planning and creating the project of Sesc’s two new cultural centers (Pinheiros and Santana) in the city of Sao Paulo. And also of the Anhembi Expo Center, in the same city as well.

Building construction – In Brazil the construction industry has been undergoing a process of modernization. As a result the sector, which over the past few years has employed a large number of workers, has shrunk. As the new technologies demand more qualified workers, a number of unskilled workforce has no job opportunities in the area.

Labour legislation – Ney Prado, a political scientist and a professor of Law, has made a speech on the labour reform in Brazil, at the Federacao do Comercio do Estado de Sao Paulo. He has talked on the Brazilian labour legislation, passed in the 1940s during Getulio Vargas’s presidency. Today it has become an obstacle to modernization because of the society’s economic development. Ney Prado proposes changes leading to diminish the government intervention in the economy.