This year we celebrate 10 years of Raízes. During this decade, we’ve developed various projects of qualification, associative works, community business, connection with the market and communication. Among all that, we always carry on with the idea of co-creation as a technique, and sustainability as a premise.
The main expertise of Raízes is to create sustainable development projects on tourism, in order to strengthening areas that we consider mandatory:
- Human capital (self-esteem and skills of local inhabitants)
- Social capital (relations based on confidence and development of work in group)
- Economic capital (income generation through a more collaborative and distributive economy)
Throughout those special ten years, we renewed our website, brought back our memories of old projects, remembered important moments and created a new layout for our communication.
A seed called “experience”
Experience is a feature that comes with time, along our own life. We can compare people’s experiences, but we can never judge them if we didn’t live and felt the same situations. In 2009, we realised that giving to people the opportunity of living different experiences could really change their lives.
The co-founders of Raízes, Mariana Madureira and Marianne Costa, started a project of income generation in Vale do Jequitinhonha, Minas Gerais. However, we’ve noticed that there was much more value on the history of those people who produce the local craftwork, than on how the final product looks like. So then, we thought:
“Why instead of taking their craftwork to the big cities, we don’t take people to Vale do Jequitinhonha?”
“From clay, to art”
Our experience gave us inspiration to develop a tour at Vale do Jequitinhonha with the objective of generating positive impact to the community. Operating the tours showed us, though, how the tourists also change a lot when they experience a direct contact with the locals in places that are a lot different from their reality. The consequence of this exchange is that they were frequently coming to us wondering when would the next trip be.
Next destination: Vivejar
That’s how, from an important experience which won various prizes, Vivejar was born!
The new company will also be a social business: it will be a tourism agency directed by Marianne Costa and specialized in community base trips in Brazil. As a co-founder of Raízes, Marianne attaches to Vivejar the value of facing tourism as a powerful tool to transform people’s reality and cause positive impact.
Saying in other words, Vivejar is coming up to show the real soul of Brazil and put the best of our people and culture under the spotlight!
The new company is going to start its activities in October, focusing on 3 Brazilian destinations:
- Vale do Jequitinhonha (Jequitinhonha Valley), in Minas Gerais – The tour is known for the beautiful and strong woman of the region, who produce a traditional type of ceramic craftwork.
- The city of Rio de Janeiro – Explores a new look over the abundant creativity and social innovation inside cariocas urban communities.
- Belém and Ilha de Cotijuba (Cotijuba Island), in Pará – Vivejar will help you see the multiple secrets and flavours of these places, which are not very known by tourists yet.
One essence, two initiatives
From the same root and essence, Raízes and Vivejar do their job in different ways…
One reaffirms its role on promoting sustainable development of people and places through collaborative projects. The other organizes experience tours in Brazil, generating income to the communities and providing deep transformations to the tourists.
