Network Projects

The ITEBA Network has conducted three major projects to date. These have been Mutirão 2000, Mutirão 2002, and Mutirão 2004. Another Mutirão is being planned for July 2006. The Portuguese word "Mutirão" means something like a self help project, as in an old American barn raising. Each Mutirão was a work-study trip consisting of a number of persons of all ages traveling to Salvador, Brazil to live and work among the people for a period of from one to two weeks. Each of the trips had two purposes. First, to provide physical labor. Second, to read about the history of colonial Brazil and see how that history, based as it was on slavery, has affected the people of northeast Brazil.

The first trip began work on two construction projects while the second and third continued that work. One project is now complete while the other is on-going. The first project, at Quilombo Zeferina, is to construct, from ground up, a community center serving a poor neighborhood of Salvador. That project is on-going. The second construction project, the Valerio Silva Church, was to refinish the second story of a one-room Presbyterian Church serving another poor section of Salvador and to construct a health clinic. This project has been completed. Both projects were the direct result of ITEBA graduates working among the poor of Salvador and clearly shows the significance of ITEBA in the lives of the people of Salvador.

Participants in the second Mutirão (2002) kept a daily Journal in which they wrote their observations, feelings, fears, and much more. That Journal is available in PDF format by clicking Mutirão Journal 2002. For information about Mutirão III (2004), click Mutirão III.

Another Mutirão is being planned for July 2007. See the Mutirão IV page for current information.

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