Heading Out - An Intro to my Project

So I figured it would be a good idea for me to start this blog up before I head off to Brazil. For those of you who don't know, I'll be leaving tomorrow for Belo Horizonte, the third largest city in the southeast of the country. I'm going with the Fulbright US Student Exchange Program, and I'll be working with a professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) to study the internal management structures of wastepicker organizations in the country.

In Brazil, there are roughly 1 million people who scavenge through the trash on a daily basis to collect bottles, cans, cardboard and other recycling. These people eke out a living with very little resources in extremely unsanitary working conditions while often experiencing a profound marginalization from mainstream society. As urbanization continues to boom and more people are forced into the favelas (slums), the number of people who resort to this kind of work is expected to grow.

In some pockets of the country, however, there have been exciting developments among wastepicker communities. Groups of these "recyclers," as they call themselves, have banded together in order to form cooperatives and associations. Together, these workers collect, sort, convert and resell inorganic, solid waste materials. As their organizations grow, they are able to pool their capital, buy equipment such as gloves, masks, trucks and uniforms and negotiate better deals within the industry supply chain. This process of collective development allows them to achieve a higher standard of living while improving their sense of self-esteem and becoming active participants in civil society. Furthermore, the collective work increases the stability of the recyclers' environments and working in teams enables them to develop camaraderie and companionship within their organizations. There are also clear benefits to the community as these groups work within the municipal urban waste management structure to clean up the city, conserve natural resources and provide cheap, raw materials to industry.

I did some research on recycler organizations while interning for the Inter-American Foundation several summers ago. I identified a number of factors that were critical in determining the success of these initiatives, but there was one that stood out to me in particular: internal management structures. While the idea of organizing wastepickers is a nice one in theory, it can be incredibly difficult in practice. First, many of these people are used to working as individuals and are distrustful of strangers, making it difficult to embrace the culture of teamwork that is so important in any cooperative endeavor. Second, many wastepickers come from a limited educational background and are sometimes illiterate, making it difficult to train efficient, productive administrative teams from within the ranks of the recyclers themselves. Third, a significant number of recyclers continue to struggle with substance abuse problems. Fourth, organizations that do experience some initial success often become highly dependent either on a single, charismatic leader or on a lucrative contract (often from local governments), undermining long term sustainability.

In my research, I plan to look at examples of successful and unsuccessful wastepicker organizations in order to identify a series of "best practices" for creating an efficient management structure. I'll be looking at many factors, including how recyclers themselves define the "success" of their groups, how decision-making is structured, how external actors are involved, how training courses are administered, how these groups organize the transition to assume responsibility over donated resources, and how positive relationships between members are nourished over time. Dr. Francisco Lima, a professor of production engineering at UFMG who performs outreach programs with the wastepicker organizations, will be supervising me on this project.

Although I did develop some initial ideas about timeline, methodology, etc in my initial proposal, I don't plan to stick to that script when I get down there. I want to spend some time in these communities talking to the recyclers, observing their work, participating wherever possible, and learning more about the outreach activities that Dr. Lima leads. Once I feel like I have a good understanding of how some organizations operate and what the culture is like, then I plan to design a more detailed research project based on my initial proposal. I think this is better than just jumping in right away without really having a good sense of what the wastepicker experience is really like. I'm really looking forward to spending some time just getting acquainted with everything.

I really hope this project ends up panning out. I really have no idea what I'm getting myself into, and I hope that I develop good relationships with the wastepicker groups and Dr. Lima's work team, that my Portuguese develops enough to lower the language barrier and that I find a way to make a meaningful contribution to the recycler movement. I'm pretty nervous, but also excited. This should be a fun challenge, and one that gives me a better sense of what I want to do with the rest of my life.

I'll try and post here as regularly as possible, and hopefully I'll have some updates worth reading. I promise I'll try not to bore everyone (if anyone is even reading this, after all). At the very least, I'm sure I'll have some funny stories about the awkward white guy from the U.S. trying to find a place among Brazilian waste pickers...