The Common Good Project: Generating authentic partnerships for social impact
Description
To stimulate social practices and promoting greater integration of society, through solidarity and social welfare, the City of Juiz de Fora carries out the "Common Good" project. The project was born in 2013, amid the discredit of the population in the political class and seeks citizen engagement in government practices. On a permanent basis, the initiative seeks partnerships that assist in the execution of social actions in favor of vulnerable population. Over five years, the project has already carried out around 300 actions and benefited thousands of people, with the support of private and public partners.
The "Common Good" project facilitates cultural actions, awareness of important issues and social causes, donation of diverse items, occupation of public spaces, promotion of health and leisure services to those who need it most, as well as other actions which involve social responsibility and solidarity. For this, it acts as a bridge connecting people and institutions that need some kind of help with those who have possibilities to help through products or services. This allows the citizen to have easy access to initiatives that perhaps would never reach him. The initiative was launched in 2013, and has since benefited thousands of people. All actions are designed to improve the quality of life and to make Juiz de Fora an even better city to live in . As the project has in its essence the execution of partnerships, the initiative does not generate costs for the municipality, which, in turn, has a communication sector capable of creating campaigns and publicizing them. The Common Good was born with the need to carry out actions that, in some way, promoted the good in a way accessible to the population. Today, after five years of its launch, the initiative has developed in other by-products, which work specific goals and audiences and intensify the presence of actions throughout the city. The matrix project, located in the Town Hall Department of Social Communication, focuses on the execution of social actions and throws light on good practices of institutions in the city. While the Common Good Neighborhoods, the biggest event of the municipal administration, works to provide proximity between the citizen and the services offered by the City and partners, as well as promoting the direct presence of the Executive in the community. The Common Good Recreation aims to occupy the public spaces by the population, democratizing access to the public spaces and transforming them into a collective equipment, under the supervision and guidance of transit of agents of the Public Power. The newest product of the Common Good Project, The Common Good News Classified Ads, enhances the reach of the volunteer network of the city, announcing in its own channels and with the partnership of private media, volunteer job vacancies in institutions that depend on this tool of interaction to carry out their missions. Successful actions have made the project known and widespread, engendering engagement throughout the city. Many partners offer their support spontaneously, without the need for solicitation and awareness of the Social Communication Department.
According to the dictionary, "the Common Good is the set of social conditions that make collective happiness possible." It is with this objective, to stimulate the solidarity and the well-being of the population, that the Communication Department of the City of Juiz de Fora launched, in 2013, the project "Common Good". The mission target specific social impact actions, such as Common Good Neighborhoods, a project that guarantees the execution of actions and events in neighborhoods of the city, providing free and easy access to public and private services to the inhabitants through partnerships. In December 2015, the City of Juiz de Fora launched this project, a social impact actions event that takes municipal administration services, awareness campaigns, health services, culture, sports and leisure to a community. Until February 2019, 18 editions of the project have been carried out, covering all regions of the city. In 2018, the project was remodeled to intensify the presence of the Executive Power in the community, extending the period of operation to a week, strengthening the actions for thematic days, covering matters such as public safety, environment, entrepreneurship. The Chief Executive also hosts meetings, decisions and other agendas concerning the City Hall in some public equipment of the community. "Common Good News – Classified Ads", another subproduct, was created in 2018 as a channel that advertises open job vacancies in institutions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), for those who want to help but do not know how. So far, more than 300 positions have been published, in 14 editions of the classified, for about 30 institutions. And the Common Good Recreation, which democratizes the urban space and transforms the main spaces of the city into a public equipment for collective use, recreation, sports and cultural activities. In just five years, about 300 actions have already been carried out, in which 320 institutions were contemplated and thousands of people in a city with a little more than 500 thousand inhabitants. The actions include donations of more than 7 tons of food, 1 million and 300,000 donated items, including clothing, books and toys, as well as bringing free public services to the population in neighborhoods. This number does not include intangible and extremely important items such as donated blood liters that save lives, meters of hair to make wigs for people with cancer, times spend in voluntary work: smiles, satisfaction, culture and joy. Currently, the initiative has communication channels (official website, Facebook profile and Youtube channel) that, in addition to significantly improving the promotion of campaigns, also work in monitoring and collecting data on actions. Through these communication tools, and trough the team that develops it, it is possible to measure, in some cases, the number of people affected, items collected, institutions contemplated and the impacts after the action. All the promoted campaigns are accompanied, from beginning to end, by a communication team of the Town Hall Communication Department.
In the same way, institutions and people who need help can already see in the Common Good a support platform in which they seek the initiative to be helped in different segments. From its birth, the city has gained a project that does not charge anything in return and promotes palpable solutions to those involved. It has also won a channel that brings together the public power, the population and private and nongovernmental partners, and offers cultural actions, presentations, awareness campaigns, donations, volunteer work and other necessities that the citizen presents. In 2015, with the debut of “Common Good Neighborhood”, an event that demands intense logistical organization and articulation with public and private partners, the initiative became the sole attribution of Coordinator Project, in addition to having the support of the Departments of Mobilization and Engagement in Public Communication, Marketing and Press. The Common Good Neighborhood leads to different regions of the city several services for a week. Today, the choice of where the project will be carried out is through an online poll of popular participation, in which the citizen can vote and choose the region where the event should take place. Eighteen editions have already happened and benefited thousand people from all over the city.
The Common Good won the resistance founded on the discredit of the population in r the political class, won multiplier agents, engaged citizens and, finally, consolidated a relationship, firm, sincere and perennial. The actions, which began with a bias towards charity, soon evolved into awareness, occupation of public spaces, changed the vector of popular participation, and today they dare to provoke society on issues reagrding inclusion, social equality and diversity. The relationship we establish with the citizen makes it clear that the “Common Good” does not transfer responsibility for the execution of public services nor does it withdraw from the City Hall the authority over decisions of the city, but it transforms the inhabitants of the city into an active force in the search for results and in the decision-making process .
Today , those who need help and those who want to offer their support already have in mind a project that promotes good in the city : The Common Good. One of the campaigns that draws the most attention is the "Common Good Neighborhoods" wich delivery to different regions several services to the population during a week. The campaign has an online survey, in which the citizen can vote and choose the region where the event will happen. Eighteen editions have already happened and benefited people from all over the city. Another initiative is the "Good News – Classified Ads".
A campaign that announces monthly vacancies for volunteer services at charities instituitions in the city. These entities look for the project and report their needs. The Common Good veiculates through its media those announcements and interested people can contact the institutions. With a year of existence, the campaign has already released about 350 places from 30 institutions. The various awareness raising campaigns on important issues also directly impacted the inhabitants thinking, as was the case with the "Pink October " campaigns which, in order to raise public awareness about breast cancer prevention and care, promoted web series with women who faced the problem, and won; awareness parades intende to combat the breast cancer prejudices and dogmas on city´s streets, photographic exhibition with examples of women who faced the disease, lectures, donations of hair, handkerchiefs, food, among others. The Common Good also brought culture to schools and assisted social projects, through trips to the theater, cinema, malls, exhibitions, museums, circus and other places that kept warm memories to the participants.
In 2013, a survey by the one of the most prestigious survey companies ,The IBOPE, they highlighted the discrediting of the political class and the enlargement of the distance bettwen of the public power sphere and the community, showing that only 41% of citizens trust the government of the city in which they live. The social protest movements and the manifestations in the streets spreaded throughout Brazil, endorsed the scenario of clash between citizen and politicians. Even though they were involved in this context, starting a new administrative management in the city of Juiz de Fora, the group led by the newly elected mayor focused on the approach to citizenship, integration, communication, collaborative management and commitment to transparency of actions . The local population overcame the discredit and embraced the mission of the Common Good and all its actions and understand its protagonist role in the changes of the society and the need to intensify the creation of sub products to maximize the reach and the results. The project today is more than a collaboration actions , it is the motivation of all decisions of the municipal administration and has been expanded and institutionalized by the City of Juiz de Fora to ensure the sustainability of the results obtained by the strength of compromised partnerships. The current numbers of the "Common Good Project " related to the partnerships are: 58 partners for children and teenagers care , 9 for the elderly, 9 for homeless or vulnerable population, 10 for people with disabilities , 7 services for people facing diseases, 65 public bodies commited with the Project, 86 volunteers, 42 non-profit institutions and 120 private institutions involved with the Common Good Project.
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- Latin America and the Caribbean
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Contact Information
Michael Guedes, Municipal Secretary for Social Communication