Managers of NGOs and socially responsible companies encourage investment in marginalised areas at a lecture held at ESADE Madrid,ESADE BUSINESS SCHOOL,29/02/2012

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Commentary

I would like to thank ESADE Business School and its team for the invitation to do this conference.

About the conference:

Since the middle of 20th century, Brazilian slums caught the attention of anthropologists and sociologists due to the high criativity, dynamism, entrepreneurial orientation, innovation, resilience and motivation of its habitants. I myself experienced this characteristics when working there in my youth. It's the DIY (do it yourself) organizationsal/economic model.

Considering the current crisis with rapid change in international dynamics and business models, diversity is an important element with high added value, it's strategic for companies in their positioning.

Deprived areas are an important leverage point for sustainability. That is where migrants’ urban social integration begins: networking, surviving, adapting, supporting, etc. Deprived areas work as a social and economic development platform to urban renovation, village sustainability and social inclusion, working as amplifiers or suppressors of sustainability issues.
Deprived areas play an essential role in building improved sustainability and provide a strategic opportunity to engage and equip leaders with sustainability skills and values, which can have a magnifying effect able to contribute to more sustainable societies.
I also explained how we are braking the poverty cycles in Brazilian slums through grassroots leaders empowerment.