“O Sonho” (The dream) is a Portuguese NGO that works in Setúbal – a city 45 Km from Lisbon.
Since 2005 “O Sonho” has been expanding its participation in community settings. In October 2007 “O Sonho” made a protocol with the Portuguese Social Security System, to work for a national poverty ending program – Rendimento Social de Inserção (Social Integration Income), aiming to promote labor, social and community integration of low income population.
This program intends to build with families new tracks for their development, on employment, education, housing, health and civil rights and duties. Intending to build a comprehensive intervention, we have been growing in the areas of microcrédit – building a coalition to give credit to promote self-employment; training – doing and promoting training on health promotion and prevention; food supplies and clothes – building coalitions in order to address serious hunger and poverty situations; and housing – promoting and developing mutualist solutions with families for access to houses.
We stand for the crucial proactive role of individuals, families and communities in their own development, so we assume as core principles for intervention the trust relationship building; and the family’s capacity and autonomy in their integration process – promoting families’ participation and empowerment –, we base our efforts on finding ways to support people on creating new opportunities for using their strengths to grow out of poverty.
We assume an active role on poverty ending and community development, focusing on social entrepreneurship and serving people in its most important development issues.
We believe that this way of creating new supporting structures for and with the community helps to promote community development and systems change.