More than 200 people came to Dr. Ruth Cardoso's public talk on Comunidade Solidária, an umbrella organization for community service in Brazil. Dr. Cardoso, president of the organization, First Lady of Brazil, and a distinguished anthropologist, is a visiting scholar at CLAS, which hosted the event.

"Fighting social exclusion must be the project of both government and civil society," Dr. Cardoso said. Comunidade Solidária facilitates just that, by serving as a link between government agencies, community groups, universities, and corporations to work on issues such as poverty, illiteracy, and hunger. CLAS Chair Harley Shaiken stated in his introduction that Dr. Cardoso has been "a witness to history" in Brazil -- as well as in Chile and France -- and is a "public intellectual in the finest sense of the word." As such, she is in a unique position to put scholarly research to work in public life. Although only five years old, it is clear that Comunidade Solidária has learned from and side-stepped some of the common pitfalls of large service organizations.

Key to its success is the organization's strategy of working with community groups and small, local-based NGOs. While it is always necessary to think of scaling up in a country as large as Brazil, said Dr. Cardoso, Comunidade Solidária addresses issues in different ways in different communities. "You have to work where the problem is," said Dr. Cardoso, noting Comunidade Solidária's flexibility. In addition, both Comunidade Solidária and the projects it works on are funded partly by the federal government and partly by businesses and foundations. This allows the organization to interact with public programs while having the support of individual communities.

Comunidade Solidária has three main goals, according to Dr. Cardoso: to engage government and society in a public dialogue around social issues, to plan and implement youth development programs (such as literacy, professional training, and mobilization of students), and to strengthen civil society. She acknowledged that government representatives and civil groups rarely come to complete consensus on issues, but that it is possible for them to agree on points -- as long as dialogue is undertaken. Comunidade Solidária pushes for these kinds of discussions, and also promotes volunteerism and government/civil society partnerships, but distances itself from partisanship. "Our strategy is to be far from politics," Dr. Cardoso said.

When asked how this is possible, being that she is the First Lady of Brazil, Dr. Cardoso responded, "I've felt from the beginning that the First Lady is not part of the political system." After a round of applause she explained, "Comunidade Solidária is not government, it's civil society; it's something new and ambiguous, with the support of both."

Youth are clearly at the center of Dr. Cardoso's interests, and that of Comunidade Solidária. According to Dr. Cardoso, this is because of their vulnerability -- to unemployment, poor education, violence, inequality -- and also because of their "energy and desire to learn to communicate with each other and change society." She explained in detail Comunidade Solidária's literacy program, for which university students volunteer to teach in rural villages. The program is funded by the Ministry of Education, universities, and private corporations. Currently there are more students interested in volunteering than the program can afford to send -- even so, 1,700 villages are affiliated and more than 800,000 people are being served by the program. "Brazilian students are really motivated by community solidarity," Dr. Cardoso said.

After a question about the roots of the declining birth rate in Brazil, Dr. Cardoso said, "Women did that in Brazil. I think we have to be very happy because it wasn't a government decision, but women's decisions." This sort of initiative needs to be supported by the health care system and government resources, according to Dr. Cardoso. More generally, she emphasized the ongoing need for government, corporate, and civil society to support community programs and the struggle against poverty and inequality.

"Money may be scarce in today's Brazil, but resources are abundant," said Dr. Cardoso, regarding the "social capital" that Comunidade Solidária is working to mobilize. "After five years, we are learning how to generate society to move.