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The Common Good Project: Generating authentic partnerships for social impact
Introduction

To stimulate social practices and promoting greater integration of society, through solidarity and social welfare, the City of Juiz de Fora carries out the "Common Good" project. The project was born in 2013, amid the discredit of the population in the political class and seeks citizen engagement in government practices. On a permanent basis, the initiative seeks partnerships that assist in the execution of social actions in favor of vulnerable population. Over five years, the project has already carried out around 300 actions and benefited thousands of people, with the support of private and public partners.

Objective of the practice

The "Common Good" project facilitates cultural actions, awareness of important issues and social causes, donation of diverse items, occupation of public spaces, promotion of health and leisure services to those who need it most, as well as other actions which involve social responsibility and solidarity. For this, it acts as a bridge connecting people and institutions that need some kind of help with those who have possibilities to help through products or services. This allows the citizen to have easy access to initiatives that perhaps would never reach him. The initiative was launched in 2013, and has since benefited thousands of people. All actions are designed to improve the quality of life and to make Juiz de Fora an even better city to live in . As the project has in its essence the execution of partnerships, the initiative does not generate costs for the municipality, which, in turn, has a communication sector capable of creating campaigns and publicizing them. The Common Good was born with the need to carry out actions that, in some way, promoted the good in a way accessible to the population. Today, after five years of its launch, the initiative has developed in other by-products, which work specific goals and audiences and intensify the presence of actions throughout the city. The matrix project, located in the Town Hall Department of Social Communication, focuses on the execution of social actions and throws light on good practices of institutions in the city. While the Common Good Neighborhoods, the biggest event of the municipal administration, works to provide proximity between the citizen and the services offered by the City and partners, as well as promoting the direct presence of the Executive in the community. The Common Good Recreation aims to occupy the public spaces by the population, democratizing access to the public spaces and transforming them into a collective equipment, under the supervision and guidance of transit of agents of the Public Power. The newest product of the Common Good Project, The Common Good News Classified Ads, enhances the reach of the volunteer network of the city, announcing in its own channels and with the partnership of private media, volunteer job vacancies in institutions that depend on this tool of interaction to carry out their missions. Successful actions have made the project known and widespread, engendering engagement throughout the city. Many partners offer their support spontaneously, without the need for solicitation and awareness of the Social Communication Department.

Key stakeholders and partnerships

The "Common Good" invests in social impact actions , through partnerships with public and private companies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to raise awareness or benefit philanthropic institutions, assisted by social programs and the population in general . The main instrument for building partnerships and engaging is communication, which runs through the social, institutional and internal spheres, generating spontaneous media in large-scale vehicles in the city and in social networks. Any agent, whether an individual or an institution, can become a partner in the project and offer its services or products.

Implementation of the Project/Activity

According to the dictionary, "the Common Good is the set of social conditions that make collective happiness possible." It is with this objective, to stimulate the solidarity and the well-being of the population, that the Communication Department of the City of Juiz de Fora launched, in 2013, the project "Common Good". The mission target specific social impact actions, such as Common Good Neighborhoods, a project that guarantees the execution of actions and events in neighborhoods of the city, providing free and easy access to public and private services to the inhabitants through partnerships. In December 2015, the City of Juiz de Fora launched this project, a social impact actions event that takes municipal administration services, awareness campaigns, health services, culture, sports and leisure to a community. Until February 2019, 18 editions of the project have been carried out, covering all regions of the city. In 2018, the project was remodeled to intensify the presence of the Executive Power in the community, extending the period of operation to a week, strengthening the actions for thematic days, covering matters such as public safety, environment, entrepreneurship. The Chief Executive also hosts meetings, decisions and other agendas concerning the City Hall in some public equipment of the community. "Common Good News – Classified Ads", another subproduct, was created in 2018 as a channel that advertises open job vacancies in institutions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), for those who want to help but do not know how. So far, more than 300 positions have been published, in 14 editions of the classified, for about 30 institutions. And the Common Good Recreation, which democratizes the urban space and transforms the main spaces of the city into a public equipment for collective use, recreation, sports and cultural activities. In just five years, about 300 actions have already been carried out, in which 320 institutions were contemplated and thousands of people in a city with a little more than 500 thousand inhabitants. The actions include donations of more than 7 tons of food, 1 million and 300,000 donated items, including clothing, books and toys, as well as bringing free public services to the population in neighborhoods. This number does not include intangible and extremely important items such as donated blood liters that save lives, meters of hair to make wigs for people with cancer, times spend in voluntary work: smiles, satisfaction, culture and joy. Currently, the initiative has communication channels (official website, Facebook profile and Youtube channel) that, in addition to significantly improving the promotion of campaigns, also work in monitoring and collecting data on actions. Through these communication tools, and trough the team that develops it, it is possible to measure, in some cases, the number of people affected, items collected, institutions contemplated and the impacts after the action. All the promoted campaigns are accompanied, from beginning to end, by a communication team of the Town Hall Communication Department.

Results/Outputs/Impacts

As a Public Communication Strategy, the Common Good was strategically allocated among the priority projects of the Social Communication Departement of the Town Hall. In each social impact action, the initiative won the recognition and involvement of the other departments and organs of the indirect administration of the City Hall. With five years of activity, the Common Good has promoted about 300 actions, contemplated 320 institutions, benefited thousands of people, donated more than 7 tons of food, and 1.3 million items were donated, including clothing, books and toys, besides taking public and private services, free of charge, to the population in several districts of the city. The project, which was born with the need to carry out actions that, in some way, promoted the good in a way accessible to the population, is now well known and disseminated throughout the city. Many of the partners offer their support spontaneously in order to promote social responsibility and to build credible partnerships with the public power.
In the same way, institutions and people who need help can already see in the Common Good a support platform in which they seek the initiative to be helped in different segments. From its birth, the city has gained a project that does not charge anything in return and promotes palpable solutions to those involved. It has also won a channel that brings together the public power, the population and private and nongovernmental partners, and offers cultural actions, presentations, awareness campaigns, donations, volunteer work and other necessities that the citizen presents. In 2015, with the debut of “Common Good Neighborhood”, an event that demands intense logistical organization and articulation with public and private partners, the initiative became the sole attribution of Coordinator Project, in addition to having the support of the Departments of Mobilization and Engagement in Public Communication, Marketing and Press. The Common Good Neighborhood leads to different regions of the city several services for a week. Today, the choice of where the project will be carried out is through an online poll of popular participation, in which the citizen can vote and choose the region where the event should take place. Eighteen editions have already happened and benefited thousand people from all over the city.
The Common Good won the resistance founded on the discredit of the population in r the political class, won multiplier agents, engaged citizens and, finally, consolidated a relationship, firm, sincere and perennial. The actions, which began with a bias towards charity, soon evolved into awareness, occupation of public spaces, changed the vector of popular participation, and today they dare to provoke society on issues reagrding inclusion, social equality and diversity. The relationship we establish with the citizen makes it clear that the “Common Good” does not transfer responsibility for the execution of public services nor does it withdraw from the City Hall the authority over decisions of the city, but it transforms the inhabitants of the city into an active force in the search for results and in the decision-making process .

Enabling factors and constraints

The solidarity of the city inhabitants helped the project to grow. The city has a diversity of people and institutions and with the raising of the Common Good, a bridge has been created where people and institutions providing support to the inhabitants in need and have facilitated the request of help and aid.. All partners contribute significantly by offering their services, sponsorships and donations to those who need them. After five years of consolidated operations the project have increased in credibility and brought to the population a feeling of solidarity, through more than 300 actions promoted.
Today , those who need help and those who want to offer their support already have in mind a project that promotes good in the city : The Common Good. One of the campaigns that draws the most attention is the "Common Good Neighborhoods" wich delivery to different regions several services to the population during a week. The campaign has an online survey, in which the citizen can vote and choose the region where the event will happen. Eighteen editions have already happened and benefited people from all over the city. Another initiative is the "Good News – Classified Ads".
A campaign that announces monthly vacancies for volunteer services at charities instituitions in the city. These entities look for the project and report their needs. The Common Good veiculates through its media those announcements and interested people can contact the institutions. With a year of existence, the campaign has already released about 350 places from 30 institutions. The various awareness raising campaigns on important issues also directly impacted the inhabitants thinking, as was the case with the "Pink October " campaigns which, in order to raise public awareness about breast cancer prevention and care, promoted web series with women who faced the problem, and won; awareness parades intende to combat the breast cancer prejudices and dogmas on city´s streets, photographic exhibition with examples of women who faced the disease, lectures, donations of hair, handkerchiefs, food, among others. The Common Good also brought culture to schools and assisted social projects, through trips to the theater, cinema, malls, exhibitions, museums, circus and other places that kept warm memories to the participants.

Sustainability and replicability

Common Good Project as partnership do not generate aditional costs to the municipality. Actions are created by communication sectors that can create campaigns and disclosures. They can easly be replicated by other municipalities, companies, other regions and institutions of the public and private sectors. The project target from the children to the elderly and the population in vulnerable conditions. This allows the inclusion, works on equity of the population and the engagement of partners in the promoted actions. The innovator factor of Common Good resides in a new way of seeing the citizen, now as a partner of the public to generating engagement and benefits to all the community. This kind of articulation expand the Town Hall performance as it is capable to create and sustain itself also as bridge between helpers and who needs help. To legitimate, those relationships between public power, entities, enterprises and the population, all participants those add efforts in social impact actions defined as priorities for the community. In this new form of realtionship there is no space to distancing from the public power sphere. For all those reasons, the Municipality focuses on the ocupation of the public spaces, bring services to the communities, and stimulates an open debate between citzens and the public power authorities. To allow those partices to be replicable in other sphres, the essential elements are the articulation, the mobilization and the engagement. The legitimacy of these actions has been maintained throughout these five years due to the integration between the municipal departments and the indirect public administration entities regarding their relationship with external partners. The base that stands out in the consolidation of this public communication alignment is the commitment of the Social Communication Departement with the other departements of the City Hall. Aany aspiration or demand for Common Good initiative, which has contact with the Social Communication Department emplyees is aligned to be built in an organized way, involving a network of strong and compromised partners , and with the credibility seal of the City Hall of Juiz de Fora.

Conclusions

In 2013, a survey by the one of the most prestigious survey companies ,The IBOPE, they highlighted the discrediting of the political class and the enlargement of the distance bettwen of the public power sphere and the community, showing that only 41% of citizens trust the government of the city in which they live. The social protest movements and the manifestations in the streets spreaded throughout Brazil, endorsed the scenario of clash between citizen and politicians. Even though they were involved in this context, starting a new administrative management in the city of Juiz de Fora, the group led by the newly elected mayor focused on the approach to citizenship, integration, communication, collaborative management and commitment to transparency of actions . The local population overcame the discredit and embraced the mission of the Common Good and all its actions and understand its protagonist role in the changes of the society and the need to intensify the creation of sub products to maximize the reach and the results. The project today is more than a collaboration actions , it is the motivation of all decisions of the municipal administration and has been expanded and institutionalized by the City of Juiz de Fora to ensure the sustainability of the results obtained by the strength of compromised partnerships. The current numbers of the "Common Good Project " related to the partnerships are: 58 partners for children and teenagers care , 9 for the elderly, 9 for homeless or vulnerable population, 10 for people with disabilities , 7 services for people facing diseases, 65 public bodies commited with the Project, 86 volunteers, 42 non-profit institutions and 120 private institutions involved with the Common Good Project.  

Other sources of information

Clipping: https://www.pjf.mg.gov.br/bemcomum / https://www.facebook.com/BemComumJF/ http://g1.globo.com/mg/zona-da-mata/mgtv-2edicao/videos/t/edicoes/v/bairro-barbosa-lage-recebe-ultima-edicao-do-meu-bairro-em-juiz-de-fora-em-2018/7217957/ https://www.pjf.mg.gov.br/noticias/view.php?modo=link2&idnoticia2=50828 / https://tribunademinas.com.br/noticias/cidade/05-05-2017/bem-comum-jf-leva-800-para-vivenciar-o-circo.html / https://tribunademinas.com.br/noticias/cidade/06-02-2017/bem-comum-e-dia-de-magia-promovem-acao-para-doacao-de-sangue.htmlhttps://www.pjf.mg.gov.br/noticias/view.php?modo=link2&idnoticia2=61423 / https://www.pjf.mg.gov.br/noticias/view.php?modo=link2&idnoticia2=62578 / https://www.pjf.mg.gov.br/noticias/view.php?modo=link2&idnoticia2=62401 / https://tribunademinas.com.br/noticias/cidade/07-03-2018/bem-comum-promove-atividades-para-as-mulheres-na-rua-sao-joao.html

Goal 17
17.17 - Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships

Data, monitoring and accountability
In-kind contribution
Public and private partnerships
Basic information
Start: 20 September, 2013
Completion: 28 February, 2019
Ongoing? yes
Region
Latin America and the Caribbean
Countries
Geographical Coverage
The project is situated in the city of Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The city has 1.435.749 km ² and 564.310 inhabitants. The project stands out in all regions of the city in a social and humanitarian way. https://bit.ly/2U95gC9
Entity
Juiz de Fora Town Hall
Type: Government
Contact information
Michael Guedes, Municipal Secretary for Social Communication, paidamaria@gmail.com, +55 (32) 98866-2622
Photos


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