Full Title: Mobile Financial Education for Waste Pickers (through financial management)

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Stakeholders: Waste Pickers (initially, the ones in dumps in Brazil); Grupo Gestão; Aalborg University; Brazilian Central Bank.

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Problem: after the closure of dumpsites, waste pickers have difficulty in: managing their monthly income; managing their cooperatives; and finding alternatives to obtain income. More info.

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Context: when they worked at the Lixão da Estrutural, the waste pickers in Brasília made money every day by selling what they managed to collect from the garbage. When the dump was closed, they started to work at the sorting centers, with their cooperatives, each receiving money only once a month (as opposed to a little every day as at the time of the dump) and, in most cases, their income has been reduced. Most are semi-literate and some are illiterate. In addition, the majority were unable to complete their studies and do not see themselves studying anything. They see no alternative for them but to work as scavengers and are exposed to reduced income and a financial system that pushes them into debt.

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For 1 and a half years after the dump was closed, the collectors received financial aid to cover the reduction in income they had. To be eligible for this money, they needed to attend classes that the SLU provided on various topics, such as entrepreneurship, personal health and cooperatives, being something essential for them to progress while receiving the aid. However, because it was in person, it made them lose one * day of work per month and limited the reach and frequency of training.

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There are another 3000 dumps in Brazil, with more than 200,000 waste pickers in total, which need to be closed by 2024, according to the New Regulatory Framework for Brazilian Sanitation sanctioned on July 15, 2020 by the presidency of the republic. Therefore, many waste pickers will need to be helped.

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Objective: Last semester, teams from University of Aalborg, Denmark, and Grupo Gestão, Brazil, developed a Mobile application called EduCatador (shown in  the picture on the right and accessible through this link (Android only).

 

Project Organization: the project is divided into two parts Mobile Education for Adults and Mobile Education for Children, as the structure of the App and gamification is different for these two target audiences.

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Project Executives: Isabel Alves (Isabel.5800@gmail.com) and Julia Brito (juliabritobsb@gmail.com ) - PSP8.

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Coordinator Responsible: Mateus Halbe (mateusconsigo@gmail.com)

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Supervising Professors: João Mello, Jens Myrup Pedersen, Paulo Celso, Simone Monteiro, Rikke Magnussen, Lise Rasmussen

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Courses involved in the Mobile Education 1.0: PSP1 (1), PSP8 (*), AAU (*)