Projeto Bagagem is a Brazilian NGO aimed at improving the livelihoods of vulnerable communities by developing and implementing local development alternatives based on community-based tourism. Its vision is to become a nationwide model in the development of community tourism pilot initiatives, and ultimately reach the policy level. Its main strategy is to support the development of tourism itineraries that benefits primarily the host communities financially, environmentally, culturally, and socially. Projeto Bagagem’s team identifies established NGOs that are important references in their area of expertise, and through a collaborative process develops an itinerary that represents source of income for local communities, and a learning experience for the visitors. Projeto Bagagems itineraries feature 3 main components:

1. THE SPECIAL DESTINATION, bringing together some of the most successful community development solutions in environmentally relevant Brazilian regions. With Projeto Bagagem it is possible to visit those places and experience how those solutions were made possible;
2. THE SPECIAL TRAVELLER, who looks for a different type of holiday, chosing a non-conventional way of travelling that enables him or her to get in touch with community life and the local reality in an authentic way;
3. THE SPECIAL TRIP, translated into the way in which Projeto Bagagem conducts the tours, enabling the best side of each participant to flourish within the group, in a process where values such as cooperation, respect and flexibility are strengthened, creating a trust relationship with partner organisations and host communities.

Projeto Bagagem’s plan of action consists of 3 inter-related programmes based on the establishment of cross-sectoral partnerships, giving rise to a strong and sustainable Solidary Economy Network for Community Tourism in Brazil:
1. NETWORK OF COMMUNITY TOURISM DESTINATIONS: currently formed by Projeto Bagagem’s four itineraries (two in the Amazon and two in the Northeast), all created in collaboration with local partners. Projeto Bagagem, together with the local partner, offers a 2-year capacity building programme to a selected group of local youth, after which they are capable of owning and managing the community-based tourism activity locally. The first Local Community Tourism Youth Group is located in Lençóis (Bahia), in partnership with a local NGO (Grãos de Luz e Griô).
2. NETWORK OF PARTNER TRAVEL AGENCIES AND ORGANISATIONS: in order to guarantee the sustainability of the local youth groups and itineraries, Projeto Bagagem establishes partnerships with national and international travel agencies and community-based tourism organizations/co-operatives. By offering its itineraries as attractive social products to be commercialized at fair rates, Projeto Bagagem intends to invert the rationale of the tourism market chain, prioritising the host communities.
3. NETWORK OF TRAVELLERS: the setting up of the Network of Projeto Bagagems Participants enables former participants to support the visited communities after their travel experience. Former participants receive an electronic bulletin on a regular basis with news on the latest expeditions as well as the developments of Projeto Bagagems further projects. Through this permanent contact former participants can support the project(s) of their choice, and keep in touch with the communities they visited.

The following realities of Brazilian society motivated Projeto Bagagem
-Brazil ranks 129th in concentration of wealth, losing out only to Sierra Leone (source: Radar Social 2005 IPEA, of 130 countries using 2003 data and the Gini Index)
-The wealthiest 1% have 14$ of the nation’s wealth. The poorest 50% (90 million people) have 14% of the nation’s wealth (Ipea 2002)
-Brazil moved from 35th in 1990 to 29th in 1998 on the world ranking of tourist receipts of principal tourism nations (source: UNWTO annual statistics)
-Growth of the tourist appeal based on nature preservation and conservation (flora and fauna), besides cultural and historic heritage by first world nations places Brazil on the vanguard as a destination in the next 10 years (source: Embratur)
-The monthly income generated for each family in the communities that Projeto Bagagem visits, does not reach the minimum wage. (source: CEAPS projeto de Saúde e Alegria, Grãos de Luz e Griô)

Based on the above data, Projeto Bagagem identified the following problems that it intendes to solve:
1)Scarce existence of income sources for the rural communities of the north and northeast of the country, accentuating the distribution of wealth between rich and poor
2)Tourism in Brazil, although apparently in a stage of pure growth, in the majority of cases repeates the welath concentratio model and does not propose models where income directly or prioriatarily benefits low-income communities
3)Lack of understanding by the inhabitants of national metropolitan areas or foreigners about the reality of Brazil and about quality solutions undertaken by NGO’s for the country’s social problems. Conscious of this reality, Projeto Bagagem was created by two college colleagues, Monica barroso and Cecilia Zanotti. With formation in Business Administration, the two became professionally active in the third sector, in NGO’s financing social projects. As they worked, the restlessness intensified of wishing to undergo their own social iniciative that generates a positive impact in Brazilian communities. Projeto Bagagem meets this anxiousness for various motives. As they came in contact with diverse innovative social experiences in Brazil through their work, they perceived that these experiences were unknown by the majority of people, in Brazil and abroad. At the same time, the strict contact with these initiatives demonstrated that, aside from being extremely efficient in developing solutions that in certain form fill in the gaps left by public policy, a common challenge was to develop sustainable alternatives for income generation for the local populatoin. From there, the idea of giving common people the opportunity to learn about these experiences and close locations, having direct contact with the local reality, and at the same time generating income for the communities visited.

The methodology of the trips and actions of Projeto Bagagem follows the guiding principals of the project, which are:
1) Tourism of the Community – The community should be onwer of the tourism undertakings and collectively manage the activity
2) Tourism for the Community – the communitiy should be the principal beneficiary of tourism, which exists for the development and strengthening of the Community Association
3)Principal Atraction = Lifestyle – The principal tourist attraction is the lifestyle of the commnity, in other words, their forms of organizing, the social projects of which they are part of, forms of community mobilization, cultural tradition, and economic activities
4)Cultural Exchange = Activities are created to offer cultural exchange. The visiters also direct part of the activities
5)Environmental Conservation – The routes respect the norms of conservation of the region and seek to generate the lowest impact possible on the environment.
6)Transparency in the Use of Resources – Communities and visitors participate in the just distribution of financial resources
7)Social Partnership with Tourism Agencies – Seek to envolve all sectors of the supply chain in tourism in benefit of the communities.

Following these principals and viewing the experience fo the project in its 4 years of operation organizing trips for small groups on the Bagagem itineraries, the leaders of Projeto Bagagem perceive that it was necessary to be closer to the community so that the impact generated increased and that it was necessary to extrapolate the organization of visitor groups. In January 2006, Projeto Bagagem gave one leap forward. It created its first Youth Nucleus of Community-Based Tourism in partnership with the NGO Grãos de Luz e Griô in Bahia. Through an initlal formation process of 5 months, 12 youths participate din training, experiences and daily practice from 8:00 to 12:00 about Community-Based Tourism and created, coordenated by Projeto Bagagem in partnership with Grãos de Luz e Griô, 4 community-based tourism itineraries in Lençois, in Chapada Dimantina, looking to benefit 3 rural communities in the municipality that were excluded from the current model of ecotourism present in Chapada. The youths, afro descendents, mostly female ages 12 to 22, are sons/daughters and grandsons/granddaughters of silters and washers and have in their families the roots of afro-brazilian culture of Jare (variant of Candomblé existent only in Chapada Diamantina), Samba de Roda, forró pé-de-serra and miths of the diamonds still strong. The trails were created to appreciate this culture, currently also excluded from the beautiful itineraries of adventure in the rivers and waterfalls of Chapada. And the culture of oral tradition of the midwifes, pais de santos, safoneiros, fishermen, storytellers and silters of the Sertao of Bahia enchanted the visitors that seek a deeper and more direct contact with the reality and the lifestyle of who made the story of Chapada Diamantina. The process is being registered and systematized to that it can travel in 2007 and 2008 to new Youth Nuclei.

Resources
At present, Projeto Bagagem only has the support of volunteers. All expedition guides and the Community-Based Tourism educator and president of the project, acta s volunteers and the necessary resources for the activities, promotion of the trips and financial costs for accounting and bank fees were generated from the trips and compensation from Grãos de Luz e Griô, which provided the space and mateirlas in order to make the workships with the youths happen. For the second year of formation of youths, Projeto Bagagem is seeking a financial partner and is in a stage of resource captation.

At present, Projeto Bagagem and its 11 groups of visitors generated R$31,801, taking into account the profits from the trips that was divided in the following form:
37.4% fro the communities (riberinha communities, rural communities of Lençois and youths of Lençois and partner communities in Ceará), 34.4% for Projeto Bagagem that was completely reinvested in the project with financial costs, accounting and promotion, and 28.2% for the partner NGO Projeto Saúde e Alegria. Also, the sale of handicrafts during the trips was R$10,010, directly for the communities. In the community of Urucureá, PA partner of Projeto Saúde e Alegria, just from the sale of handicrafts from the Bagagem groups, nearly R$8,000 were generated, an average of R$1,000 per group that visits the community for 2 days, considering that for the expedition in January 2006, the purchase from all visitors reached R$2,200 in 2 days, which corresponds to 10% of annual income of the Urucureá Women’s Group with the Tucumarte product line, baskets made from Tucuma straw. In Lençois, since July 2006, the Projeto Bagagem groups generated R$3,373, benefiting 3 rural communities, 2 Community-Based Tourism youth leaderships, a band of youths from Grãos de Luz e Griô, responsible for the cultural night of the itinerary and the group of youths and craftsmen in paper tissue, responsible for the registry album that the visityr receives. The youths along with Projeto Bagagem hold meetings with the inhabitants of the communities for disucssion of how the income generated for the association can be utilized. The construction of a community hangar, the festival of Oxalá, the fest of the patron saint, maintenance of the headquarters of the association and energy genrator, purchase of canoes and first-aid kid are some of the examples of how the income earned from the trips was utilized by the partner community associations, aside from the daily wages earned by the leaders that accompany the group. Obs: each Projeto Bagagem itinerary is constructed collectively by the local partners and Projeto Bagagem, and all activities are proposed, organized and guided by the local partners together with the local communities. A Projeto Bagagem itinerary is essentially a demand-led process where local communities and partners decide whether the community-oriented tourism activity is an interesting option for local interests and needs, Projeto Bagagem playing a bridging role between local realities and the travellers. Local ownership is guaranteed through the creation of Local Community Tourism Youth Groups. The capacity building workshops include the whole process of setting up the youth group, developing the local itineraries including price and logistics, interacting with local people and learning from them, creating communication products for the group.