NGOs will have resources for reducing impact of World Cup

Twenty organizations have been chosen by the Brazil Human Rights Fund (“Fundo Brasil de Direitos Humanos”) to participate in an open public selection entitled Sports Mega Events and Human Rights, designed to projects to reduce the impact of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics on the local populations.

The selected organizations will each be eligible for up to $13,000 in funds to their initiatives, provided by the Ford Foundation, one of the Fund’s partners. In Rio specifically, projects will also cover the negative impact and human rights abuses committed in connection with the 2016 Olympic Games which will be staged in the city.

According to the Fund’s press office, among the topics addressed were citizenship, housing, basic services, public transport, urban mobility, informal labor, efforts to reduce violence and the criminalization of social movements, access to information, and other issues related to gender, race, ethnics and diversity.

Projects coordinator Maíra Junqueira told Agência Brasil on Wednesday (Mar. 5) that since 2011 the organization has noted an increase in projects which discuss and raise issues with rights standards in place in a number of cities, especially regarding their infrastructure works, whether urban or rural.

The idea, Junqueira explained, "is to sensitize local populations on their rights, so that they know what is right or wrong and where to get the information they need, thus empowering them to stand up for their rights and watch that policies are enforced.”

The Brazil Human Rights Fund is a Brazilian private foundation created in 2005, which aims to promote human rights in the country.

Translated by Augusto Queiroz / Fabrício Ferreira