Here I present portraits of people associated to the immense support network of brazilian civil society that is committed to improving the living conditions of their communities and positively changing their realities.
"Brazil is an emerging economy and a developing country exhibiting various societal problem such as lacking access to, and poor quality of, education and health services. Since the private sector has increased considerably within the last 20 years in the Latin American giant, the number of entrepreneurs aiming to address these problems, a species termed social entrepreneurs has been increasing as well. This is also partly due to governmental support at federal, state and local levels.
By contrast, the importance of networks in the Brazilian society and economy is widely recognized . Recent research has acknowledges that sound and extensive networks with different kinds of stakeholders may contribute significantly to social entrepreneurs’ success. Since the primary goal of social entrepreneurs is to support and advance the improvement and development of some social groups or even the society in general, these entrepreneurs are usually closely linked to their target groups within the society in various ways . Moreover, as profit maximization is not the main goal of social entrepreneurs, whose financial resources are often limited because access to credit for them is usually difficult ; they tend to rely on networks in order to acquire valuable resources and to create scale . These networks may comprise various groups such as family and friends, business partners, customers or the government. Social entrepreneurs may deal with these groups and draw on their support in different ways, which in turn result in diverse effects on the social entrepreneurs’ businesses.” (Gisela Artola Pascual Marianne Mann - Social Entrepreneurship in Brazil - A compilation and explanation of relevant networks for social entrepreneurs).
