Bahia Street aims to educate and engage concerned individuals in shaping solutions to poverty and related issues of race, gender, and class. It provides opportunities for non-Brazilian students and community members to learn about ways to participate in change that improves the lives of individuals living at home and abroad and makes our world less fearful and more hopeful. Past participants have come from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia.
Bahia Street contributes to an engaged community of global activists in three ways:
- By leading one- and two-week study trips to Brazil for community members, students, and development workers.
- By providing limited volunteer opportunities at the Bahia Street School in Salvador.
- By engaging community members in discussions on poverty and related issues and sharing the stories of successful initiatives around the world through presentations, publications, and events.
By creating a movement aimed at addressing the gap between rich and poor through education and citizen diplomacy, we seek greater engagement and more hope for all of the world’s people.
Bahia Street works to meet the demand for programmess that explore the root causes of poverty and offer positive, locally-inspired, effective solutions. At the heart of Bahia Street’s success is the belief in the importance of implementing, within the infrastructure of its own organization, the change that it expects to effect in the greater society. Bahia Street turns Brazil’s normal power structure on its head: Individuals typically at the bottom of the local power structure, in this case poor African-Brazilian women, work as leaders and key decision-makers. Bahia Street co-director Margaret Willson is widely respected for her work on issues of race, gender, and class both in Brazilian society and globally and is frequently asked to present on these topics. Given their leadership in the field, Dr. Willson and Brazilian co-director Rita Conceição frequently speak with other NGO leaders to compare their work in Brazil with similar work in other countries around the world.
