In 2021, Hydro and the Hydro Sustainability Fund (FSH, in Portuguese) invested, combining the efforts of the two organizations, more than BRL 18 million in 25 social projects and engagement initiatives, with different focuses such as education, work and income, economic development and strengthening of social organizations, which together benefited more than 80,000 people, directly and indirectly, in communities in the seven municipalities where the Company operates in Pará: Barcarena, Abaetetuba, Moju, Acará, Tomé-Açu, Ipixuna do Pará and Paragominas.

Through Hydro, the “Trilhando Caminhos” project supported children and adolescents in the city of Barcarena with cultural and sports activities after school hours, in addition to psychosocial care for students, family members and community members. Last year, the project had 377 students enrolled, 242 of which were re-enrolled after an active remote and face-to-face search, 135 new students enrolled in the last quarter of the year and 1.355 social services were provided.

“Viver Cidadania”, on the other hand, aimed at strengthening the Social Assistance services of Paragominas and carried out in partnership with the Municipal Secretariat of Social Assistance (Semas, in Portuguese), offered 54 hours of training to the secretariat's technicians in 2021, through planning, care for the elderly, entrepreneurship, as well as support in the production of a collection of socio-educational activities notebooks. For 2022, one of the goals is to implement reading spaces open to communities and return to face-to-face activities.

Seeking to contribute to improving the quality of municipal education in Paragominas, the “Território do Saber” program, in partnership with the Municipal Department of Education (Semec, in Portuguese), has been working on different fronts. In 2021, it offered improvement and specialization courses to professionals from the municipal education network on locally mapped topics. More than 450 professionals, including teachers, coordinators, directors, technicians and leaders from urban, rural, indigenous and Semec schools, participated in courses, seminars, workshops and other meetings held at the Território do Saber.

In addition to courses and training, the program left another important legacy in 2021: the collective construction of the Youth, Adult and Elderly Literacy (AJA, in Portuguese) curriculum, with a curriculum proposal built by consultants, literacy teachers and student representatives.

Entrepreneurship and support for family farming

“Embarca Amazônia”, which works towards training for the education of young socio-environmental entrepreneurs, benefited around 500 people aged between 18 and 29, from the municipalities of Abaetetuba, Barcarena, Moju and Paragominas in 2021. Through the ”Despertar” workshop, young people discovered how to start entrepreneurship in the Amazon. “The youth and adults of Abaetetuba need incentives like these, provided by the course, to formulate ideals of sustainability and business creation. Furthermore, I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this great, accessible and efficient event, and for the contribution of this workshop to the city as a whole”, says one of the participants, Carlos Costa, from Abaetetuba.

In the last year, the cycle of activities of the “Ativa Barcarena” program had the participation of 91 farmers from 21 rural communities and islands in the municipality of Barcarena. Its role is in rural technical assistance and training of family producers; in the organization of the network of socio-productive actors and the promotion of products with local identity. In all, 91 Development Plans for Production Units were developed based on the challenges faced by beneficiary families, with 203 technical visits to family production units and 17 workshops on the manufacture, dilution and application of agroecological bioinputs. For 2022, six more cycles of technical assistance to beneficiaries are planned.

Another project aimed at strengthening family farming is “Coletivo Florestar”, which is run by Instituto Mandú and financed by Hydro. The program directly benefits 50 families of family farmers from rural communities in the municipalities of Tomé-Açu and Acará. Its strategy is to collaborate for the rural territorial development of these cities and to promote social organization.

“We are committed to being a good neighbor and to collaborating directly for the territorial development of the communities where we operate. Our operating strategy has been consolidated through an increasingly close relationship with society and partnerships with public and private transforming agents. By sharing knowledge, we have had excellent learning opportunities while fostering the sustainable development of these communities”, emphasizes Eduardo Figueiredo, director of Territorial Development at Hydro.

FSH projects

With the Hydro Sustainability Fund (FSH, in Portuguese), a non-profit organization established in 2019 as a result of a joint commitment by the companies Hydro, Albras and Alunorte, there are currently 10 projects under way.

The actions are carried out through the launch of Public Notices for project financing. In Public Notice 01, eight initiatives were selected and started their activities in 2021. Projects distributed in three lines of investment participated in the selection: promotion of work, employment and income and the environment; institutional strengthening of associations and social organizations; and sporting or cultural events. The first public notice guarantees a total investment of BRL 730,000, benefiting approximately 300 people.

Another project developed by FSH, “Travessia Barcarena” was born from the joint efforts of a network of partners to bring humanitarian aid to families in Barcarena affected by the socioeconomic crisis generated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Among its main initiatives are: training of more than 100 seamstresses who produced 170,000 masks purchased by the project and distributed free of charge in the communities, generating extra income for these participants and their families in a total of BRL 284,000 reaching more than 80,000 people in the distribution of the masks produced. Another measure to face the Covid-19 pandemic was the installation of mobile sinks, at the Barcarena Producer Fair, promoted by Travessia. In addition, the project purchased 50 tons of food from local farmers, distributed to around 1,370 socially vulnerable families, and also donated agricultural materials to improve the production of 91 farmers in the region. “I had the opportunity to earn income, dignity, another vision of myself as a woman. Today, I see myself as an entrepreneur and I can have my own business without leaving home. Travessia changed my life”, emphasizes seamstress Ângela Tavares.

The Tipitix project, in partnership with Fundação Mitsui Bussan do Brasil, which has the Peabiru Institute as its executor, invests in the creation and development of new community-based agri-food businesses in the municipality of Barcarena, and, in 2021, served 10 producers in the 1st Cycle, which developed 14 products. The forecast is that up to 200 family producers will be served in the second business cycle of the project, which for the year 2022, has already selected 10 new products.