Strengthen Social Assistance services in Paragominas. This is the objective of the Viver Cidadania Project, carried out by Hydro, in partnership with the municipality's Municipal Secretariat for Social Development (SEMDES, in portuguese). The initiative offered training to the secretariat's technicians, through workshops aimed at planning and qualifying service in Basic and Special Social Protection Services, offered at Social Assistance Reference Centers (CRAS, in portuguese) and Specialized Social Assistance Reference Center ( CREAS, in portuguese). This includes training linked to human rights, in addition to the production of socio-educational materials on topics such as family and community coexistence, eradicating child labor and valuing women and female empowerment. The contents are appropriate by age group and applied in activities with more than a thousand children, teenagers and elderly people, served by the Coexistence and Strengthening of Bonds Service (SCFV, in portuguese) offered by SEMDES in Paragominas.

From 2019 to 2023, the project carried out 300 hours of training for 150 technical employees, covering more than 30 themes and provided a digital platform with online training and materials. In the training offered to employees, skills were developed for the emotional stabilization of people who have gone through traumatic experiences, working on rhythm, art and movement techniques and even addressing challenging topics, such as depression and suicide, sexual, ethnic, racial and religious diversity, autism and other issues present in the day-to-day activities of Social Assistance Services.

Furthermore, since the diagnosis phase of the Viver Cidadania Project, in 2019, the potential for the development of structured literary reading actions integrated with socio-educational activities offered in Basic and Special Social Protection spaces was identified. Since then, the Project has offered continued training on the topic of Reading and Life History, qualifying teams of SEMDES professionals to develop reading mediation activities for different age groups, including the elderly.

Viver Cidadania also made available a collection of around 200 children's literature titles, selected under the curatorship of specialist Reni Adriano. “Along this journey, in dialogues with technicians and users, we identified potential for regular literary reading practices in all spaces, with the support of groups of young reading mediators, who participate in the SCFV”, highlights Milene Maués, project manager at Hydro.

The objective of the Reading Club was to encourage socio-educational activities through literary works in Basic and Special Protection programs and services with the support of young reading mediators who are users of the SCFV. The Literary Reading Training action with teenagers served in SEMDES spaces began in July 2022 as a pilot project for 50 teenagers. It was successfully implemented in Reading Spaces (CRAS Camboatã, CRAS Jaderlândia, Núcleo do CRAS Nagibão, Núcleo Morada do Sol, CREAS, Children and Adolescents Shelter). In 2023, 88 young people attended the Reading Club and 22 socio-educational materials were produced and delivered to SEMDES in the last workshop entitled “Legacy of the project” and at the Intersectoral Social Assistance Seminar, which marked the end of the project. “The six Reading Spaces of the Municipal Secretariat for Social Development of Paragominas (SEMDES), were implemented with resources from the Norwegian Chemical Union Alnor and support from the Viver Cidadania Program. The program trained young people and professionals from Social Assistance in Paragominas to work with reading mediation”, says Milene.

“The Viver Cidadania project was further proof that the union between the private sector and public authorities can work. And together with the city of Paragominas, we want a more viable, educated and included society in the municipality”, says Anderson Martins, industrial director at Hydro Paragominas.