boracea

Oficina de Artes Boracea was created in 2005 following a project that improved Oficina.Boracea’s homeless shelter facilities - the first shelter in São Paulo city to focus on the care of waste pickers.
Reusing newspaper, the Workshop developed design products sold in stores throughout Brazil, Europe and the United States. It regularly attended design fairs in Brazil and abroad and in 2007 it was invited to be part of Ambiente Fair, in Germany.
It received the Planeta Casa Award, from Casa Claudia magazine, in 2008.
With great repercussion in the media, the design had two fundamental guidelines: the financial emancipation of people in situations of vulnerability - resulting in the rescue of self-esteem and dignity of the vulnerable - and the creative destination of waste, resignifying waste value through recycling and reuse in an innovative way, producing objects that are environmentally sustainable.
By bringing a creative look to waste and, consequently, adding value to a material that would previously have been sold only as raw material to be recycled, the project introduced a new perspective on the issue of recycling for this population that had in it a source of income and brought a new possibility of financial return. It was of great importance the reuse of materials that are not so “noble” even for the waste pickers, as well as the contribution in the process of raising awareness of the transformative and innovative possibilities of “waste”.
This income generating project enabled participants to leave the shelter in a few months and provided their livelihood for almost 10 years. In 2007, the group became an NGO with its own headquarters and its goal was to help in the reintroduction of homeless people's into the job market.