CESE team begins 2023 planning – the year it celebrates its 50th anniversary!
05 de February de 20232023 is a special year for CESE: the moment the organization will celebrate its 50-year history has arrived! There have been so many partnerships, so much dialogue and networking, projects supported, families benefiting. The CESE team came together on 26 and 27 January to discuss its annual plan, in the face of new possibilities and the many challenges that presented themselves at the beginning of this year.
A lot of activities have already been planned for CESE’s 50th year, including exhibitions, campaigns, grant-funding, training, seminars, courses, meetings involving leaders from different regions around Brazil, ecumenical and inter-religious action. The administration and finance sector, and the projects sector also gave an overview of what is expected over the year.
But the struggle continues, now more than ever, alongside indigenous peoples, quilombolas, extractivists and other traditional communities, rural and urban young people, women, black women, LGBTQIA+ populations, continuing our work prioritizing the North, Northeast and Central-West regions, the Cerrado, the Amazon and the Pantanal. Some new areas will be presented here.
This year, CESE will have a new website, with a new brand and new fields of work, including inclusion. CESE’s brand manual will be made available for supported groups to use in the publicity material for their projects. This will include guidance on how to use it and what to avoid.
Meetings will also be scheduled for intense analyses of the political situation, with a focus on the change of Federal Government and the new prospects moving forwards, the situation of the Yanomami peoples, the reconstruction of important bodies for the struggle for rights, as well as nation councils and similar. We will publish new series on our networks, new initiatives will be discussed with the groups, there will be new challenges and a great desire to fight.
Sônia Mota, CESE’s Executive Director, talked about the changing winds we are experiencing, with the departure of the former head of state. “These are hopeful times. The departure of the ex-president is a victory, achieved through great struggle. But we cannot let our guard down. We must continue to be aware of the challenges which will certainly come, and hold the new government to account in its commitment to Human Rights.”
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CESE was set up during the most violent year of the Military Dictatorship, when torture had been institutionalized, when arbitrary imprisonment, killings and the disappearance of political prisoners had intensified. The churches had the courage to come together and create an institution that could be a living witness of the Christian faith in the service of the Brazilian people. I’m so happy that CESE has reached its 50th anniversary, improving as it matures.
Over these 50 years, we have received the gift of CESE’s presence in our communities. We are witness to how much companionship and solidarity it has invested in our territories. And this has been essential for us to carry on the struggle and defence of our people.
I am a macumba devotee, but I love being with partners whose thinking is different from ours and who respect our form of organization. CESE is one such partner: it helps to build bridges, which are so necessary to ensure that freedom, diversity, respect and solidarity can flow. These 50 years have involved a lot of struggles and the construction of a new world.
When we hear talk of the struggles of the peoples of the waters, of the forests, of the semi-arid region, of the city peripheries and of the most varied organizations, we see and hear that CESE is there, at their side, without replacing the subjects of the struggle. Supporting, creating the conditions so that they can follow their own path. It is this spirit that we, at ASA, want you to maintain. We wish you long life in this work to support transformation.
In the name of historical and structural racism, many people look at us, black women, and think that we aren’t competent, intelligent, committed or have no identity. Our experience with CESE is different. We are a diverse group of black women. We are in varied places and have varied stories! It’s important to know this and to believe in us. Thank you CESE, for believing in us. For seeing our plurality and investing in us.
You have to praise CESE’s capacity to find answers so as to extend support to projects from traditional peoples and communities, from family farming, from women; its recognition of the multiple meanings of the right to land, to water and to territory; the importance of citizenship and democracy, including environmental racism and the right to identity in diversity in its discussion agenda, and its support for the struggles and assertion of the values of solidarity and difference.