About this report

The 2022 Fundação Maria Cecilia Souto

Vidigal annual report brings together the furthest reaching projects and the actions that had the most impact over the course of the year. They are initiatives that show an institution that is firmly pursuing its proposal of ensuring that every Brazilian child is able to develop in a manner that is healthy and full of opportunities.

In this third year of the pandemic, the Foundation, together with different and multiple partners, made every effort to estimate the impacts that have been caused to the attention paid to, and development of, children in Early Childhood, and reinforced its commitment to the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

New partnerships aimed at strengthening the ecosystem and weighty actions connected to the 2022 elections (with recommendations to candidates for governor for policies linked to Early Childhood) were important steps in paving the way for a path towards comprehensive child development.

Also as part of a partnership, the Foundation launched groundbreaking studies containing key data for managers’ decision-making and the qualification of Brazilian Early Childhood public policies. Amongst these are the never-before-seen in Brazil “National Quality Assesment of Early Childhood Education”, and the “Inequalities and Impacts of Covid-19 on the Attention Paid to early childhood” study.

They monitor the technical support and cooperation initiatives directly with public authorities and other organizations for the promotion of public policies focused on Early Childhood in the state of Ceará and the municipalities of São Paulo (SP) and Boa Vista (RR), while new actions have been developed, such as the launch of the Science for Early Childhood Award, in Salvador (BA), which recognize scientists from all over Brazil who are committed to research applied to the first years of life.

Training sessions for journalists and communicators in matters related to Early Childhood matured, including a course offered by Columbia University, now in its fourth year, and the second edition of the ‘Early Childhood First - Journalism & Elections’ course, involving new partners, as well as a course of action aimed at independent and marginalized media vehicles led by the ‘Nós, Mulheres da Periferia’ (‘We, the Women on the Margins’) group, addressing Early Childhood from and for the communities on the margins of our cities in various regions of the country.

In the area of digital communication, the Foundation recorded significant advances in its channels, with the number of views increasing on its website and social media. The visual image of the cartoon character Nenê do Zap’ was changed, with new, more agile and interactive channels of communication being launched, whilst he was also rechristened, now being called ‘Nelson da Silva Neto’.

Over the next few pages you will be reading about all this and much more, so you will begin to understand that, for the Fundação Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal, Early Childhood always comes first.

The governing body of the Fundação Maria Cecilia Souto

Vidigal guarantees a strong and sustainable structure and works to ensure the longevity of the projects and programs. In 2022, a few new names joined the units that form this governing body.