Olivier-Hugues Terreault is preparing Brazilian society to be able to care for their growing elderly population. Through an innovative clowning therapy, he is equipping caregivers and seniors themselves with tools for communication, meanwhile his work with decision makers and the general population...
Read moreSuzana Machado Pádua
Ashoka Fellow since Jan 1998
Working in Nazaré Paulista, a relatively impoverished conservation area that borders on the Atlantic Forest and is a major source of water for the city of São Paulo, Suzana Padua has developed a new model for community engagement in environmental protection.
Read moreJoao Claudio has long sought the most effective way to serve the poor: first as a Jesuit, then as a social activist, and now as a doctor developing novel ways of providing first-class health care to Brazil's slum dwellers.
Read moreOscar Arruda has devised a strategy for enabling farmers in Brazil's semi-arid northeast to exploit an abundant local plant as an alternative crop that provides economic self-sufficiency in an otherwise depressed local economy.
Read moreLuiz Tadeo Damaschi's goal is to make one of the world's largest cities a greener place. A resident of Sao Paulo, Luiz Tadeo plans to raise and plant various types of fruit trees throughout the city to put back a bit of the nature that has been overwhelmed by concrete.
Read moreNasser Youssef Nasr, 35, an agronomist from the small coastal state of Espírito Santo, is adapting an important discovery to Brazilian conditions and spreading it to Brazilian farmers. He's showing that by growing crops amidst mixed native groundcover and weeds, farmers can both limit pest damage...
Read moreRoberto Siqueira Carneiro is reintroducing rare monkeys into threatened ecosystems, starting with the remnants of Brazil's Atlantic rainforest. Since the monkey can not survive unless the forest is healthy, engaging popular support for the monkeys should be an effective means of protecting the...
Read moreIsmael Ferreira de Oliveira
Ashoka Fellow since Dec 1990
Ismael Ferreira is working to make Brazil's declining sisal industry competitive and to put more profits into the hands of the crop's many small producers. Grown in the dry Northeast, sisal is a drought-resistant cash crop that helps these farmers stay on their subsistence farms.
Read moreWagner Gomes has created a development initiative that unites students from rural backgrounds with impoverished farmers in the Northeast of Brazil to collaborate with one another and increase their productivity.
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