Alessandra Orofino
Ashoka Elected in 2020   |   Brazil

Alessandra Orofino

Nossas
Note: the following Fellow is on sabbatical from the Fellowship. Should you have any questions regarding this Fellow, please feel free to contact us here.
Alessandra is strengthening citizen participation and distributing power by equipping organizations and individuals with digital tools strongly anchored in offline performance in the most diverse…
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Because of the pandemic, Alessandra Orofino was selected by Ashoka as a Special Relationship (Virtual) using an online process.

Introduction

Alessandra is strengthening citizen participation and distributing power by equipping organizations and individuals with digital tools strongly anchored in offline performance in the most diverse territories and fields of activity. She founded Nossas, an activism network that creates and distributes methodologies and digital tools for social mobilization, to strengthen democracy and guarantee access to rights at the municipal, state, and national levels.

The New Idea

Alessandra is coordinating organizations and citizens in mobilization networks and sharing methodologies and technologies to strengthen citizen participation in the creation and implementation of fairer and more democratic public policies. After a successful experience with her previous organization Meu Rio, Alessandra replicated the model for other cities in the country, training citizens already engaged with social causes to establish local mobilization networks. The Meu Rio model was replicated in 10 municipalities throughout Brazil and the digital tools of Nossas have already been used in mobilization campaigns in more than 27 municipalities in the most diverse fields, guaranteeing access to rights for different populations. By creating and distributing digital tools that constitute direct communication channels with the government and articulating the population’s demands clearly and directly, Alessandra is equipping thousands of citizens for social participation and nationally fomenting a culture of changemaking.

She combines technology with offline mobilization, using contemporary communication mechanisms, such as messaging applications, social networks, and SMS, to create channels for participation in politics at the municipal, state, and national levels. The tools work as a direct link, with a clear direction of the population's demands to the decision-makers of the public power. Among the innovations created at Nossas is “Defezap”, a WhatsApp channel for reporting police violence cases that are submitted to a public investigation body, the “Mapa do Acolhimento” (Welcome Map), a network present in all States of Brazil that matches victims of gender violence with psychologists and volunteer lawyers, and Beta, a feminist robot, who monitors bills from the National Congress, disseminates information, mobilizes citizens to participate in campaigns in defense of women's rights, and works as a direct channel to pressure politicians in social networks. Nossas acts with speed and addresses campaigns around urgent and current demands by acting based on a distributed power model. In total, they have already mobilized more than 1.6 million people and influenced the creation of more than 120 public policies.

Alessandra is also at the forefront of a movement for accessible communication of social causes and political content to diverse audiences, especially for young audiences. Nossas' campaigns and tools use young and humorous language, including memes and slang. She is also the creator of Brazil’s first news comedy show “Greg News,” transmitted in the HBO TV channel and YouTube, that reaches thousands of young people and adults and expands the reach of progressive guidelines in the daily lives of citizens. Aiming at the mass impact, Alessandra sees the media as a strategic means to influence the opinion and behavior of millions of people. For this reason, she wants to continue innovating in the field of accessible communication for engagement, partnering with high-visibility content creators on the internet, and expanding the use of digital tools to increase social participation in politics in Brazil and Latin America.

The Problem

Brazil is one of the most unequal countries in the world, and its dictatorial past and recent democracy are contexts that favor and tend to maintain a scenario in which political and economic decision-making power is limited to the minority of the population. The combination of socioeconomic inequality and immature democratic political institutions results in a huge imbalance in the way in which political power is distributed. The unequal distribution of power has contributed to the weakening of public policies and legislation that can improve the quality of life for people and communities. This is reflected in, for example, the high rates of police violence against the black and peripheral population (78% of those killed by the police are black and brown), as well as in the high rates of violence against women (which increased by 44.9% during the pandemic), both problems that are not yet efficiently addressed by the government.

In addition, lobbying efforts tend to perpetuate the status quo and influence the creation and implementation of laws and public policies that serve the interests of privileged groups, which are not always fair and inclusive. Although there are social organizations that focus on the impact on public policies, many of them still use traditional advocacy strategies to achieve this goal, using old strategies and direct negotiation with institutional actors. In addition, often due to the lack of articulating leaders and dynamic organizing tools, the demands end up becoming diffuse, without addressing a clear decision maker. Thus, atomized unorganized groups find it more difficult to mobilize and effectively pressure for changes in public policies.

Finally, the results of the research "The Brazilian Dream of Politics", which interviewed more than 1,000 people between 18 and 32 years old, pointed out that 38% of those surveyed did not want to participate more actively in politics, and 23% had little interest. In addition, the active population in citizen participation processes represents few social segments, leaving some groups underrepresented especially the most vulnerable groups and those in a situation of social exclusion. The challenge, then, is to make the mechanisms of participation more diverse and dynamic, working so that they are known and recognized by the most diverse population groups, and accessible considering their specific characteristics, so that it is increasingly representative of all segments of society.

The Strategy

Alessandra started her work at the municipal level, with the experience of Meu Rio, a multi-purpose organization that carries out the inspection and monitoring of politicians and city problems and mobilizes citizens around campaigns that combine digital tools and offline mobilization to pressure decision-making. After a successful experience with Meu Rio, she then built Nossas to act both at the local scope through the structures of the “Nossas Cidades Network” (Our Cities Network), which replicates the model in 10 municipalities, and at the thematic and national scope with the creation of tools to address specific causes, such as Beta, a chatbot that oversees the National Congress and mobilizes for women's rights, and the “Mapa do Acolhimento” (Welcome Map), a platform that connects women who have suffered gender violence to a network of volunteer therapists and lawyers willing to offer their services, which has already served more than 5000 women spread across all Brazilian states.

Since 2019, Nossas had carried out training of mobilizing groups in 27 municipalities further expanding access to the mobilization tools created. As a laboratory, Alessandra and her team at Nossas are constantly looking for new ways to achieve their goals, following global trends in the sector to keep their methodology always up to date and innovative. In addition, the entire team is trained to create and run tests and collect and analyze data on all initiatives, in order to collect learnings that can propel work in new directions. All the organization's initiatives start from the mobilization of citizens on the ground as a central element to create campaigns and mobilize people en masse to pressure politicians for better solutions to public problems. Meanwhile, through solidarity networks, Nossas organizes people to create solutions to public problems among themselves - such as the lack of access to services specialized in gender violence, with the “Mapa do Acolhimento, police violence, with “Defezap”, a WhatsApp channel for reporting cases of police violence directly to the Human Rights Commission of the Rio de Janeiro Legislative Assembly, and the lack of representativeness in spaces of power, with #MeRepresenta, a platform to connect voters to candidacies that value human rights.

Since the beginning of the operation, Nossas has mobilized more than 1.6 million people around more than 200 campaigns and trained more than 200 people in strategy, communication, and technology for campaigns. More than 120 public policies have already been impacted by campaigns led by Nossas’ Cidades Network structure. In response to COVID-19, the network has provided various services such as the distribution of hygiene items and basic baskets in periphery communities facing COVID-19 outbreaks and the provision of 4G networks for students to continue their studies remotely. A movement co-led by Alessandra and 163 other social organizations fought to guarantee basic emergency income for families during the emergency. The work done by Nossas has had an impact on all the people who are involved with the organization, who undergo transformation processes on their potential for citizen participation - and at the same time also impacted the government institutions themselves that are increasingly faced with the need to listen to the demands of people mobilized on a large scale.

The Person

Alessandra had her first experience with the process of influencing and pressuring politicians at the NGO Promundo, founded by Fellow Gary Barker, working in a mobilization campaign for the approval of a bill that criminalizes physical and humiliating punishment against children. After that, she worked at Purpose on several projects that combined digital mobilization strategies with traditional advocacy.

In 2010, Alessandra realized a scenario of accelerated changes with the discovery and exploration of the oil found off the coast at Rio de Janeiro, the preparation of the city to host the World Cup and the Olympics, as well as the great political movement due to the city hall elections. She realized that there was a risk that the city would change very quickly, without the population being consulted and acting actively and consciously in this process.

In 2011, with the goal of strengthening participation in municipal politics, Alessandra and her now husband Miguel Lago founded the organization Meu Rio to mobilize people around campaigns, using digital tools and offline strategies to pressure decision makers in building fairer and democratic public policies. With the success of the initiative, Alessandra then founded Nossas, a laboratory to replicate and expand the model of Meu Rio and incubate new initiatives and tools for activism and social participation.

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