CHAPTER THREE
Movements, Coalitions and NGO Platforms Together: flexible webs and fluid spaces We have seen the crises in which civil society organisations work and their unique and diverse roles as collaborating actors, whether they are leading, catalysing or supporting social change…
Let’s take a look at some in-depth experiences of the challenges, tensions, dilemmas and possibilities that they face.
The story of a social movement ally: The Brazilian Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (Abong) By Iara Pietricovsky, Co-director (Abong) and Forus Chair The Brazilian Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (Abong) has played a significant role and continues to do so in Brazil. In 1970s, the time of the military dictatorship, a powerful new impulse emerged of civil society organisations, becoming key actors influencing the future political landscape in the country. Social movements started to surface alongside NGOs, supported by more progressive factions within the Church, known as Ecclesial Base Communities, where the processes of political awareness, inspired and fermented by Liberation Theology, fed all the movements promoting the re-democratisation process. The NGOs were launched mainly by people returning from exile. Instead of the usual route they stayed independent from political parties and trade unions. There were more than 5000 different groups busy re-establishing connections with the people on the ground, planting the seeds of social movements to come. The way that they could operate legally was as non-profit associations.
Chapter 3: Movements, Coalitions and NGO Platforms Together
The churches were places where radical intellectuals connected with these movements, promoting ideas and connections around the country, building a resistance and a common agenda. Initially this was focused on issues such as agrarian reform and democratisation, infused with a generic idea of human rights. During the early 1980s, the Landless Workers Movement, (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) became the first significant social movement in Brazil. The Unified Workers’ Central (Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT) and the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT)) were also established in this period. They were not yet strong on women’s rights and particularly not on issues of black women and anti-racism. At the beginning of Brazil’s democratisation process, birthed by the adoption of the new constitution in 1988, the civil society sector in Brazil was being significantly shaped by the social movements.
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