by Karl Widerquist | Aug 12, 2010 | News
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with a delegation of BIEN members on June 29th, 2010 in Sao Paulo. The meeting was arranged by Senator Eduardo Suplicy, who has been an ally of President Lula throughout his term of office. The BIEN delegation included Senator Suplicy; Guy Standing, of the University of Bath (UK); Ingrid Van Neikirk, of the Economic Policy Research Institute (Cape Town, South Africa); Karl Widerquist, of Georgetown University-Qatar; Robert van der Veen, of Amsterdam University (the Netherlands); Bishop Kameeta, of the Lutheran Church of Namibia; Louise Haag, of the University of York (UK); James Mulvale, of the University of Manitoba (Canada); and David Casassas, of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (Catalan, Spain). Each of the BIEN delegates spoke for 5 to 10 minutes. President Lula spoke for more than a half hour. He reviewed his achievements in moving Brazil toward greater equality and social justice over his seven years as president. Although he did not promise to introduce basic income in his remaining time in office, he said that he has moved in that direction as quickly as was possible given the political, social, and economic conditions of Brazil at the time. He was optimistic that the Workers Party would retain the presidency in the upcoming elections and that his successor would move further in that direction.
by Karl Widerquist | May 27, 2010 | News
The ReCivitas pilot project made its 19th payment in the village of Quatinga Velho, Brazil on May 8th, 2010. With this payment ReCivitas expanded the number of participants by 10 to a total of 71. The project makes a small payment of 25 Brazilian Riyals to some of the residents of a small town in the state of Sao Paulo. It is funded entirely by private donations. For more information, or if you wish to donate, go to https://www.recivitas.org.br/ or contact ReCivitas at: recivitas@recivitas.org.br.
by Karl Widerquist | Mar 17, 2010 | News
On the 25th of October 2008 the Instituto pela Revitalização da Cidadania, in the small community of Quatinga Velho at the municipality of Mogi das Cruzes, ReCivitas began an independent a pilot project in the Basic Income of Citizenship (BIC) in line with the principles of universality and unconditionality. The organizers hope that the experience of this project will help educate the public about BIC, paid monthly, in cash, to all local residents, at any time they wish to participate in the project, without any discrimination or requirement to reciprocate. The project is financed by a consortium of Natural Persons formed exclusively for this purpose The project which was originally expected to last for one year and pay a monthly amount of R$30,00 to 27 members of this community. In November of 2009, at the meeting to present the results of first year of experience, the consortium decided to continue the project for another year. After 15 months, the project pays unconditional income to 67 residents of Quatinga Velho. For more information, or instructions on how to donate, contact: recivitas@recivitas.org.br.
by Karl Widerquist | Mar 16, 2010 | News
The Partido dos Trabalhadores (the Workers Party) held its Fourth National Congress on February 19-21. All 1350 delegates, by unanimity, approved a guideline as part of the Presidential Program of their candidate Dilma Rousseff. This guideline includes the following endorsement of BIG: “The expansion and the strengthening of the popular consumption goods market, that produces strong positive impact on the set of productive sector, will be attained by: … (h) permanent improvement of the income transfers program, as Bolsa Familia, to eradicate hunger and poverty, to facilitate population access to employment, education, health and better income; (g) transition from the Bolsa Família Program to the Citizen´s Basic Income – CBI, unconditional, as a right of everyone to participate in the wealth of the nation, as foreseen in Law 10.853/2004, an initiative by PT, approved by all parties of the National Congress and sanctioned by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on January 8th, 2004.”
