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The IAF and AQUIPP Help Brazil’s Quilombola Communities

Brazil's Quilombola communitiesBrazil’s Quilombola communities consist of Africans and Afro-descended people who escaped slavery and established remote mountain communities called quilombos. In 2020, these communities were spread across Brazil and numbered close to 6,000 in total. Brazil brought in more than four million slaves from Africa over the course of its colonial history, only ending the practice when Brazil became the last country in the Americas to ban slavery in 1888. Unfortunately, the legacy of slavery persists as many descendants of enslaved people still live in poverty. Brazil’s Quilombola communities suffer a poverty rate nearly three times that of the country as a whole — 75% compared with about 25% for the country overall, according to 2018 government data.

The Inter-American Foundation in Brazil

The Inter-American Foundation (IAF) began in 1969, giving grants to grassroots projects working to improve poverty, sustainability, resource management, entrepreneurial skills, leadership, civil rights and more across Latin America and the Caribbean. The IAF currently has 343 active projects across 26 countries, investing more than $100 million in these development initiatives.

Brazil is a large beneficiary of IAF grants, with 27 active projects running as of July 2021. Brazil received its first IAF grant in 1972. IAF investment in these projects totals about $7 million and has directly benefited more than 25,700 people in Brazil. The projects work in a variety of areas, from fighting food insecurity and poverty to providing housing and job training to Venezuelan refugees.

AQUIPP and Quilombola Communities

One of the IAF’s many active projects in Brazil is a grant given to the Associação Quilombola do Povoado Patioba (AQUIPP). AQUIPP fulfills a variety of needs for Brazil’s Quilombola communities, especially when it comes to improving the lives of youth. The association provides educational workshops for young Quilombola people that focus on improving their chances of finding employment, leadership roles in the face of discrimination and strengthening their relationships with their Afro-Brazilian heritage. AQUIPP hopes that these young people will go on to become ambassadors outside their local communities, educating others in Brazil and around the world about the importance of Quilombola culture and practices.

AQUIPP and other Quilombola organizations also work in the political and health sectors. As part of their advocacy work on behalf of the Quilombola people, the organizations work with local and national governments to fight discrimination in schools and other public spaces and to protect Quilombola communities’ land rights. In the health sector, AQUIPP plays a key role in providing masks and other personal protective equipment as well as educational information about protection from COVID-19.

The IAF has been supporting AQUIPP’s work in Brazil since 2017. The IAF reports that the efforts of AQUIPP directly benefit 200 people and indirectly benefit an additional 1,000.

Preserving the Future of Quilombola Communities

Brazil’s Quilombola communities remain strong despite centuries of persecution and discrimination both before and after the abolition of slavery in Brazil. Their vibrant Afro-Brazilian traditions of music, dance, clothing, agricultural systems, languages and more, have survived against the odds.

Programs like AQUIPP help amplify Quilombola voices and fight devastatingly high poverty rates in Quilombola communities. With the help of AQUIPP and the IAF’s funding, young Quilombola people can gain access to the education and training they need to acquire well-paying jobs and rise out of poverty.

– Julia Welp

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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How Heritage Preservation Reduces Poverty

How Heritage Preservation Reduces PovertyCultural heritage preservation means keeping the artifacts and traditions of a community intact against factors trying to change them or wear them away. Some common examples are restoring historical buildings, passing on an ancient craft or recording traditional tales. Cultural heritage is crucial for communities. It gives them a way to look back on their history in a way that informs their present-day identity. It also provides the communities with new chances to thrive.

Many people behind cultural conservation programs prioritize staying local and helping their communities as much as possible. Often, people living in poverty or those on the outskirts of society are the ones first offered these opportunities. In this sense, heritage preservation reduces poverty and helps communities by giving people employment and education.

Heritage Tourism

Cultural heritage preservation encourages as well as utilizes tourism. Heritage Tourism is one of the major ways preserving cultural heritage can reduce poverty in a community. It often boosts a community’s economy and can become one of its major industries. Many tourists visit cultural sites and partake in culturally-enriching activities while traveling and tend to stay longer at these places.

As tourism increases, so do jobs for local community members directly involved in tourist activities (such as museum guides or re-enactors) and those not associated with tourism (such as the food industry or local shops). Employers can then afford to pay their employees more as they receive more and more business. People also become encouraged to start their own businesses or move their businesses to these small communities upon seeing the economy emerge and grow. A Pakistan-based study published in February 2020 shows that increases in tourism noticeably improve a community overall. A 1% increase in tourism can enhance the GPD by 0.051%, agricultural development by 0.26%, direct foreign investment by nearly 2.65% and potentially decrease poverty by 0.51%.

Examples of Cultural Heritage Preservation

An example of a cultural heritage preservation project that has greatly helped a small, rural community is the Rural Revitalization Drama Festival. It occurs in Shixia Village in China and showcases traditional Chinese Opera. Though Shixia was an impoverished village in 2010, the tourism created by the festival has provided more jobs. It has created more opportunities for extra income, encouraged people who previously left the village to return and urged people to start businesses there. The festival has also highlighted other cultural treasures in the area that promoted even more preservation projects and tourism. By 2019, they were able to purchase the technology needed to process their own millet crops; whereas, they previously had to outsource production to other places.

These disciplines and practices are culturally important, but they also give many people the chances of employment and education. For example, in the Philippines, Escuela Taller has created education programs in different traditional disciplines, such as carpentry and metalwork. In Peru, local women were trained in creating traditional textiles in order to support themselves and their families. This project was created by Centro de Textiles Tradicionale del Cusco in 1996 with the support of JoinTrafalgar and the TreadRight Foundation.

How Heritage Preservation Reduces Poverty

Cultural heritage preservation reduces poverty and helps communities by passing down ancient, artisan crafts to new generations. Preserving cultural heritage is a way of declaring to others that the people and the communities housing these museums, historical buildings and traditions are important and worth protecting. With people empathizing with a community, it can encourage them to fight against the destruction of land or buildings. It can inspire people to donate and even start charities and nonprofits. Preserving cultural heritage reduces poverty by promoting the visibility and the empowerment of communities. It can at first seem to only be about showcasing a country’s history but it runs deeper. Cultural heritage preservation gives modern people a chance at a prosperous future.

– Mikayla Burton

Photo: Flickr