Welcome to the Betinho Project!

In 1973 Betinho, his wife Maria, and a few Brazilian friends were received in Canada as political refugees after fleeing the military coup that had toppled the government of Salvador Allende in Chile. Betinho was accepted as a graduate student in political science at York University and was a major force in the creation of that university’s Brazilian Studies group, later the Latin American Research Unit (LARU), which became the seed for CERLAC (Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean). In Toronto he also contributed to organizations such as the Development Education Centre (DEC) and Gatt-Fly.

 

Returning to Brazil in 1979, Betinho and friends Carlos Afonso and Marcos Arruda founded the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses (Ibase), a leading NGO for citizenship mobilization. As a social activist, Betinho was a leading figure in several national campaigns including the National Campaign for Agrarian Reform, the Movement for Land and Democracy, the Movement for Ethics in Politics and the Citizenship Action Against Hunger, Poverty and for Life. He also founded the Inter-Disciplinary AIDS Association (ABIA), and worked with street children (receiving UNICEF’s Child and Peace trophy in 1993), the women’s movement, and for the democratization of communications and information using the Internet as a tool.

 

Betinho is one of Brazil’s modern heroes. Although living with debilitating health condition (he was a hemophiliac and lived with HIV/AIDS for the last 10 years of his life), Betinho was one of the country’s strongest fighters for social inclusion, citizenship and democracy. Canadians should feel honoured and proud that our country provided a home to Betinho, where he felt safe to continue developing his work.