Good afternoon, my name is Adriana, I am the manager of Tem Quem Queira, a social enterprise
that reuses banners and vinyl tarps and believes that good ideas and simple attitudes can contribute
to the improvement of the human condition.
What fascinates me most about this project is the human material, because, after all,
we are all equal.
I am a mother, I am married, I am from Rio de Janeiro and I am an entrepreneur.
I am passionate and I am enraged.
When they invited me to come here, I thought that the best way to tell our story would
be to tell the story of some of the people that are a part of our project.
I am going to start with one, the story of Gabriel, who walked into my office the other
day and raised his hand and said, full of pride: “There are 34 and I counted them
myself!”
Gabriel is Flávia’s son.
Flávia is 32 years old and was incarcerated in 2006 when Gabriel was less than 2 years
old.
He was away from his mother for 6 years.
He rarely went to school and had problems with learning.
When Flávia was let out, on probation, she came face-to-face with a son who was almost
9, and barely knew how to read or write.
Much less count.
But when this happened, Flávia already worked for our team for more than a year and had
always been dedicated, committed and really interested.
And so, without any prejudice, we bet on her ability and invited her to cover the vacation
leave of one of our managers.
In the short time that she covered the vacation time of this manager, we saw that Flávia
was a natural leader.
Flávia had never sewn a tarp.
She had no idea what an environmental impact was or the concept of reuse.
She assumed the position and today she leads our workshop in downtown Rio, which fabricates
about a thousand pieces, with bold designs and the highest quality.
Our pieces have even gone to Macy’s, the North-American department store giant.
One of the members of Flávia’s team is Luiz.
When Luiz started working with our project, he was still in full custody.
He participated in a workshop within the prison.
He was arrested, a truck driver for drug trafficking.
He finished his sentence, was freed, but didn’t want to return to the northeast, where he
had come from.
He decided to start over with us and today he is famous for his care and attention in
the pieces that he makes.
When he was freed to start his life over, we got together and each one helped out with
an item: a stove, a fridge, rent.
He even got a new neighbor.
He went to live near Bela, the manager who went on vacation when Flávia took over, who
today has proven to be a talented mold-maker.
Luiz became famous – he has appeared on TV, in magazines, on TV shows many times.
They asked him in an interview what this program had done for him that was new, what difference
it had made in his life.
He said that the greatest difference is that now he is welcome.
He said that before, when he arrived somewhere, people dispersed, everyone would leave.
Now it is different, now he has a home, he goes out on the weekends, he has friends.
He is simply welcome.
As I said before, Luiz participated in a workshop that we had within the prison.
One day, I got into my car and, with a prison guard in my passenger seat, I crossed a soccer
field in the middle of a match, to bring the material for a request that we needed to deliver.
The hangar where the workshop took place was at the end of the immense area of the prison,
and the only way to get there was by crossing the soccer field.
So I did.
My family was really worried.
Later my husband asked me: “Why did you do that?”
I said that I didn’t know.
That I did it because nothing could stop us.
We needed to deliver the request and I needed to be sure that the material got there.
And so I put it into the car and crossed the soccer field, end of story.
And we delivered the request, of course.
And so, like this, action by action, and detail by detail, we put this idea to work.
It is a force of indignation that gives energy, faith and happiness, and pushes us up and
beyond.
It was this indignation that made me leave my comfort zone.
I, well-born and well-raised, lived in a small and comfortable world.
Today I relate to a much larger universe.
Today, my world has become richer.
I learned a lot on this road.
I learned not to romanticize so much on the day that I entered one of our workshops in
the Morro do Turano slum and saw a girl sleeping on top of the sewing machine, with a huge
request to fill.
I learned to recognize that that girl had lived for 19 years without any notion of future.
That we were born the same but that we had been given completely different development
conditions.
I learned, therefore, that what works is empowerment. Power gives life more than 24 hours.
I mean, this girl doesn’t even work with us anymore, Débora.
She left the community and we are sure that she left more empowered to live better.
I discovered that collective learning is electrifying.
That gathering people together who have no hope and helping them reach a goal is perfectly
possible.
It is possible as long as we look beyond the obvious, beyond our reach, as long as we have
a good dose of passion.
Like it was possible for Jaqueline, who was incarcerated for 8 years.
Jaqueline had never worked.
When she was given semi-open custody, she started working in one of our workshops, and
she had no talent for sewing.
So she took a place at the cutting table.
Today, most of the pieces of Tem Quem Queira that are cut one by one leave the hands of
Jaqueline.
Jaqueline, fits, selects, combines, mixes colors, one by one.
Today, Jaqueline occupies a fundamental position in our team.
She is our designer.
And this is our trick: we reveal unknown talents.
Talents that are unlikely to appear.
Because a lack of opportunities blurs these talents.
With our team, initially, there are opportunities for all.
Everyone who wants, everyone who needs.
Actually, I want to call attention to this topic because our team without previous training
is full of competence.
Thais, free now, proved that competence when she represented us at Fashion Business, a
Rio fashion event where we were super successful.
Gustavo, our banner collection logistics coordinator, also proves our competence.
No one had ever heard of this job, not even him.
But this is the name that we gave his position.
Gustavo, who couldn’t even recognize a banner, had no idea what our raw material was, today
doesn’t only recognize it, he deals with giant challenges like collecting all of the
banners used at Rock in Rio or the New Year’s party on Copacabana.
The banners from the New Year’s party on Copacabana weren’t useful, weren’t pretty,
didn’t have significance.
They were a nuisance for the city.
But then they became 10 thousand totes that were distributed to the municipal schools.
This is how we arrive.
We arrive to provide a destination, to provide beauty, to provide utility and significance.
Today we are a group with relevance, with individual and collective significance.
We are a group that understands that the responsibility of a viable world is all of ours and of each
one of us individually.
We believe that good ideas and simple attitudes can actually improve the human condition.
Today, my power and my indignation and my responsibility have passed through the hands
of Gustavo, who had never collected, and Thais, who had never sold, and Jaqueline, who had
never cut and Bela, who and never molded and Luiz, who had never sewed and Flávia, who
had never lead and Gabriel, who now knows how to count.
Thank you.