CESE launches the book “Racial Equity’ with the support of Kellog FoundationCESE launches the book “Racial Equity’ with the support of Kellog Foundation

“If you don’t know where you come from, how can you know where you are going?” This African proverb provides the framework for the book “Equidade Racial – Sistematização do Projeto de Fortalecimento Institucional” (“Racial Equity – the Systematization of the Institutional Strengthening Project”), written by CESE and launched this Thursday (09) at 5:30 pm on the terrace of the CESE office (Rua da Graça, 164, Salvador).  The publication revisits the initiative CESE constructed with its partners (Ethnic Media Institute – Instituto Mídia Étnica and the Steve Biko Institute) under the Racial Equity Programme/Institutional Strengthening Project to Combat Racism, implemented between 2011 and 2013, focused in the Brazilian Northeast, and supported by the Kellogg Foundation.

The initiative was jointly developed by the organizations, which launched a grant funding process with two categories: one aimed at institutional strengthening and the other at training leaders and communicators.  The institutional strengthening project has two dimensions: on the one hand, support for each organization’s specific activities in their respective fields of operation, including proposals for young people, women, culture, African-origin religions and quilombos.  On the other, CESE developed a training process addressing emerging and fundamental themes for the anti-racist struggle.  Eleven projects were selected from organizations from Bahia, Paraíba, Maranhão, Ceará, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, Sergipe and Piauí.

The book allows the reader to visualize a range of initiatives to combat racism, and racial and gender inequalities, and to value the preservation of African-origin cultural manifestations, quilombola community rights and the rights of black youth, while, at the same time pointing out the obstacles to strengthening political activities faced by black activists.

“In this sense, this publication is an exemplary model for activists, students and anyone interested in understanding contemporary Brazilian civil society.  In particular, it identifies the additional difficulties that organizations in the black movement face when putting race on the agenda, in a context in which racism functions to make black activism invisible, to criminalize and disqualify black activism and its rights agenda,” asserts Sueli Carneiro, Doctor of Education, Coordinator and Founder of Geledés – São Paulo’s Institute of Black Women (Instituto da Mulher Negra de São Paulo) and member of the Network of Black Brazilian Women’s Organizations (Articulação de Organizações de Mulheres Negras Brasileiras: AMNB).

Revisiting the experience

The first chapter provides detailed background, including CESE’s history and its developing approach to the issue of race, the Kellogg Programme for Racial Equity and the creation of the Baobá Fund (Fundo Baobá).  The training process is presented in the second chapter, which considers how this was organized, its content, instruments and methodology, as well as the most relevant processes constructed by the participants, based on their own baggage and experiences, in particular the indicators that formed the basis for an analysis of the organizations’ institutional development during the project.

The third chapter addresses the organizations’ experiences in the field, in line with three central indicators: Sustainability, Public Advocacy, and Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (PME).  The fourth chapter includes an interview with the Kellogg Foundation’s Director of Programmes for Latin America and the Caribbean, explaining the institution’s decision to support the fight against racism as a priority in the Northeast of Brazil.  The fifth chapter features interviews carried out with representatives from the Ethnic Media Institute and the Steve Biko Institute.

In between the chapters, “Dialogue” sections provide summaries of key discussions which took place during the training sessions, led by specialists from a range of civil society organizations, rights activists and invitees, in order to address specific issues such as gender, sustainability, institutional racism.  An additional section, entitled “Some Stories” contains narratives constructed by members of the organizations during the last training meeting; these recount some of the experiences that took place throughout the projects.

According to the publication, revisiting the experience is an important moment, in order to appropriate its meanings as thoroughly as possible, by understanding its background and considering how far it may have repercussions for future activities, both for the organizations that  took part and for others that could be inspired by it.  “Systematization here is a movement of return to a given pathway using words, words which dare to summarize the lived experience.  It enables a return via other dimensions, such as imagination and corporeality, as well as reason and critical reflection, it is able to order and reconstruct the trodden pathway, and thus construct new knowledge, produced by and shared with the collective.”

The publication will be distributed free of charge at the event (one copy per institution/organization).

“If you don’t know where you come from, how can you know where you are going?” This African proverb provides the framework for the book “Equidade Racial – Sistematização do Projeto de Fortalecimento Institucional” (“Racial Equity – the Systematization of the Institutional Strengthening Project”), written by CESE and launched this Thursday (09) at 5:30 pm on the terrace of the CESE office (Rua da Graça, 164, Salvador).  The publication revisits the initiative CESE constructed with its partners (Ethnic Media Institute – Instituto Mídia Étnica and the Steve Biko Institute) under the Racial Equity Programme/Institutional Strengthening Project to Combat Racism, implemented between 2011 and 2013, focused in the Brazilian Northeast, and supported by the Kellogg Foundation.

The initiative was jointly developed by the organizations, which launched a grant funding process with two categories: one aimed at institutional strengthening and the other at training leaders and communicators.  The institutional strengthening project has two dimensions: on the one hand, support for each organization’s specific activities in their respective fields of operation, including proposals for young people, women, culture, African-origin religions and quilombos.  On the other, CESE developed a training process addressing emerging and fundamental themes for the anti-racist struggle.  Eleven projects were selected from organizations from Bahia, Paraíba, Maranhão, Ceará, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, Sergipe and Piauí.

The book allows the reader to visualize a range of initiatives to combat racism, and racial and gender inequalities, and to value the preservation of African-origin cultural manifestations, quilombola community rights and the rights of black youth, while, at the same time pointing out the obstacles to strengthening political activities faced by black activists.

“In this sense, this publication is an exemplary model for activists, students and anyone interested in understanding contemporary Brazilian civil society.  In particular, it identifies the additional difficulties that organizations in the black movement face when putting race on the agenda, in a context in which racism functions to make black activism invisible, to criminalize and disqualify black activism and its rights agenda,” asserts Sueli Carneiro, Doctor of Education, Coordinator and Founder of Geledés – São Paulo’s Institute of Black Women (Instituto da Mulher Negra de São Paulo) and member of the Network of Black Brazilian Women’s Organizations (Articulação de Organizações de Mulheres Negras Brasileiras: AMNB).

Revisiting the experience

The first chapter provides detailed background, including CESE’s history and its developing approach to the issue of race, the Kellogg Programme for Racial Equity and the creation of the Baobá Fund (Fundo Baobá).  The training process is presented in the second chapter, which considers how this was organized, its content, instruments and methodology, as well as the most relevant processes constructed by the participants, based on their own baggage and experiences, in particular the indicators that formed the basis for an analysis of the organizations’ institutional development during the project.

The third chapter addresses the organizations’ experiences in the field, in line with three central indicators: Sustainability, Public Advocacy, and Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (PME).  The fourth chapter includes an interview with the Kellogg Foundation’s Director of Programmes for Latin America and the Caribbean, explaining the institution’s decision to support the fight against racism as a priority in the Northeast of Brazil.  The fifth chapter features interviews carried out with representatives from the Ethnic Media Institute and the Steve Biko Institute.

In between the chapters, “Dialogue” sections provide summaries of key discussions which took place during the training sessions, led by specialists from a range of civil society organizations, rights activists and invitees, in order to address specific issues such as gender, sustainability, institutional racism.  An additional section, entitled “Some Stories” contains narratives constructed by members of the organizations during the last training meeting; these recount some of the experiences that took place throughout the projects.

According to the publication, revisiting the experience is an important moment, in order to appropriate its meanings as thoroughly as possible, by understanding its background and considering how far it may have repercussions for future activities, both for the organizations that  took part and for others that could be inspired by it.  “Systematization here is a movement of return to a given pathway using words, words which dare to summarize the lived experience.  It enables a return via other dimensions, such as imagination and corporeality, as well as reason and critical reflection, it is able to order and reconstruct the trodden pathway, and thus construct new knowledge, produced by and shared with the collective.”

The publication will be distributed free of charge at the event (one copy per institution/organization).