The balance sheet, published this Thursday, 16, highlights the company’s investments in the States of Bahia and São Paulo in Education, Well-being and Empowerment initiatives
The structured investment towards the development of communities can actually change the reality of thousands of families. Some examples are disclosed in the Balance Sheet published by Bracell this Thursday, 16. Soluble and kraft cellulose producer with operations in the States of Bahia and São Paulo, Bracell invested, in 2020, R$ 2.6 million in education, well-being and empowerment projects, directly reaching over 116 thousand people. These figures do not include the contributions made to the Government of over R$ 14 million for Covid-19 prevention and treatment actions, especially in the municipalities in these States in which the company has forestry and industrial operations.
More than numbers reflecting Bracell’s social investment, the balance sheet gathers testimonies from representatives of the educational institutions, production groups, and communities supported by the company. That’s the case of the family of student Bruna Naiure Souza, from a community called Tombador, in Alagoinhas, Bahia. Student at the family farming school (Escola Família Agrícola da Região de Alagoinhas – Efara), Bruna and her family participated in an experimental project from the agroforestry system that she heard about in the school, thanks to the initiatives to empower the communities surrounding the company’s operations. “I was admired by all the different things that can be produced in a single space. With SAF, we don’t buy food, we produce, consume and sell food,” she says.
Sabrina de Branco, Bracell’s Corporate Relations, Communication and Sustainability senior manager, says that the company had to overcome itself and keep its determination to move forward despite the uncertainties during the pandemic period to keep these actions to help people. “At this moment, when the world is still feeling the impact caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, we are still committed to contributing to reduce the social and economic vulnerability of as many people as possible,” says Sabrina in the balance sheet’s opening message.
The central pillar of the company’s actions, the education initiatives have benefitted over 49 thousand people through four projects in Bahia: Núcleo de Educação Ambiental, Ecomunidade, Troca de Saberes and Educação Continuada. This last initiative is responsible for training teachers and school managers in the rural area, like teacher Rita de Cássia who has endured the pandemic together with the other teachers to continue to take knowledge to the students who were studying at home.
According to Sabrina, historically, education has been the priority in terms of Bracell’s social investments, but the health emergency caused by the pandemic also required initiatives to prevent and treat the disease, which included calling the company’s employees to donate food and resulted in the donation of 223 tons of food. “As always, we are still investing in ‘teaching people how to fish,’ but we could not overlook the urge of ‘giving the fish’ when hunger could no longer wait. For this reason, we encouraged our employees and their families, our partners, and services providers to donate food to the families whose social vulnerability was worsened by the pandemic and to Hospital Amaral de Carvalho (HAC), in Jaú, São Paulo,” Sabrina says.
She also points out that Bracell’s investments to fight against Covid-19 included the acquisition and donation to health units in the States of Bahia and São Paulo of 24 ventilators, 352 accessories to ventilators, 12 ICU beds, 398,000 disposable masks, 47,500 surgical gloves, 30,250 protection glasses, 40,000 disposable aprons, 180 tablets and accessories, one equipment to expedite Covid-19 testing, and over 1,900 liters of bleach.
The digital version of Bracell’s 2020 Balance Sheet is available at http://bit.ly/balanco-social2020.
