Sacred Sculptures Pirapora do Bom Jesus

Posted on May 29, 2009 by jean blanco

About You

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Contact Information

Title

MRS.

First name

Maria Aparecida

Last name

Marques

Your job title

Coordenadora

Name of your organization

Organização Fênix

Organization type

NGO

Annual budget/currency

R$ 448.823,59 (em 2008)

Mailing address

Rua Ártico nº 22 - Jardim Reginalice

Telephone number

(11) 4198-4180

Postal/Zip Code

Country

Brazil

Website

http://Website

Email address

ongfenix@terra.com.br

Alternative email address

ongenix@hotmail.com

Your idea

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This will be the address used to plot your entry on the map.

Street Address

Av. Jundiaí s/nº

City

Pirapora do Bom Jesus

State/Province

São Paulo

Postal/Zip Code

06550-000

Country

Brazil

Geotourism Challenge Addressed by Entrant

quality of tourist experience and educational benefit to tourists , quality of benefit to residents for the destination .

Organization size

Medium (101 to 1000 employees)

Indicate sector in which you principally work

Community Organization

Year innovation began

2001

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Indicate sector in which you principally work

Living culture.

Name Your Project

Sacred Sculptures Pirapora do Bom Jesus

Describe Your Idea

IDB/Fomin

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Si perteneces a un pais de Latinoamerica y el Caribe tienes la oportunidad de presentar tu iniciativa para acceder a fondos para innovaciones en turismo sostenible del BID/FOMIN (para mayor informacion leer la seccion sobre la oportunidad BID/FOMIN en la pagina principal del Desafio).

Deseo postularme.

Consumidores (viajeros), Grupos comunitarios autóctonos, Atractivos naturales y culturales.

Indica cuales de estas tematicas cubre tu innovacion (elige todas aquellas opciones que apliquen)

Innovación y diversificación en el desarrollo de productos turísticos, Profesionalización, buenas prácticas y certificación de servicios turísticos sostenibles.

Innovation

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What is the goal of your innovation? Please describe in one sentence the kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.

To create opportunities to expand knowledge in tourism, culture and art through income generation, diversification of tourism and enhancement of local culture.

Please write an overview of your project. Include how your approach supports or embodies geotourism or destination stewardship. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the map located on the competition homepage.

Pirapora do Bom Jesus is a religious city: its history is linked to the image of Bom Jesus, which annually attracts about 70 organized pilgrimages, which generate an inflow of thousands of people led by faith and devotion. Therefore, the trade in sacred images is the chief fact of local trade, especially toward the religious tourism.
Thus, the School of Sacred Arts emerged with the goal of professionalizing this segment of artistic people and assist the economically disadvantaged sections of young (or at social risk) in terms of learning commercialization and ensure a source of income through marketing this art to visitors as the city is not equipped with any industry and lives exclusively on tourism and local trade.
Furthermore, the School has been, over the years, increasingly visited by pilgrims and other tourists, and because of that, it is currently attractive as a cultural component of the tourism council. Therefore, the empowerment of young people is extremely necessary both to improve the quality of life of a tourist destination and also to improve the quality of incoming tourism to Pirapora.

Explain in detail why your approach is innovative

Since the City built a monument of local pilgrims through images that portray the Music "Pilgrimage" and composer and singer (Renato Teixeira) as a tourist attraction, we have put forwarded the idea to build also a gallery of Saints, with several images of saints for display and sale to visitors, with the difference that would be made by the young local residents economically disadvantaged. In addition to perpetuating the culture and tourism site, the practice of a trade would generate income without leaving your city, since it has no industry and the HDI is the lowest of Greater São Paulo. A studio was built for workshops and to seek resources for practical activities in teaching sculptures and transversal issues, such as computerization, Culture and History of Art, Environment, Design and Tourism, acting in the capacity of the local community to improve the quality of tourism in the city. This provision refers to both arts and local crafts for sale, as a cultural tourist attraction for visitors.
Today, after seven years of work, the first students are multipliers for other students, in addition to commercialize their work inside and outside the municipality, including abroad.

Impact

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Describe the degree of success you have had to date. How do you measure, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the impact on sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How has it transformed or contributed to the power of place or demonstrated the sustainability of tourism? How does your approach minimize negative impacts?

The same motivation that, for centuries, has made millions of people traveling in a religious pilgrimage, such as Fátima (Portugal), Santiago de Compostela (Spain) etc.
The history of the local community is attractive, especially when it has some relationship with the city for the visitor. Tourists usually visit a common destination and to know its major cultural and natural attractions. We do have many natural resources but rather we have so much invested in culture. Because of this position, we invest in tourism that engages with the local culture. We understand that knowledge itself is not always sufficient to know the essence of cultural needs. Tourism need to experience living their daily lives, especially those that have particular interest in this environment, which in our case are those interested in the Catholic sacred images.
Our concept of life-seeing tourism (Tourism by-experience) that offers the visitor more contact with the local residents, as interact directly with the visitors, the school remains open and allows visitors to see the work being done, make your orders and disseminate the work that is reaping the results through their own young players.

In what ways are local residents actively involved in your work, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?

Communities that have very little resources reacted in the best possible way, because we were bringing an opportunity to local young people who believed that another tourist attraction is possible, in a perspective of sustainability, poverty reduction and social inclusion. In this way, they are thinking of tourism in a comprehensive manner, involving and engaging the community, to promote socio economic development and strengthen local traditional cultures.
The program helps strengthening local culture and the premise of sustainable development of those involved, such as the multipliers who acquire knowledge and those who have learned to sell their work.

How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?

Tourism is an intangible activity, based on experience, beauty and landscapes. For Pirapora, the main motivation of the visitor is religiosity. Thus, when the main motivation is materialized through sacred sculptures, the experience of visiting tourists results on a quality gain thereby involving and generating enthusiasm on visitors who acquire the images, representative of local culture and religion. This engagement of the visitor is so strong that the School of Sacred Art has received demand for people who want to know the work and the artists, becoming attractive as a cultural city.

Describe how your work helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area's cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues.

The municipality is surrounded by the Tiete River which gives the place a large amount of foam generated by the pollution that comes from the great metropolitan area of São Paulo. These foams, which are spread over the surface of the river, became sadly famous around the country, thus undermining the city's tourism, its main source of income. Thus, the project highlights the river (the school is on the riverbanks), seeking awareness of tourists and visitors mainly with regard to the need and importance of cleaning up the river, both in the environmental sense, as to generate income .
Linkages are also being planned to add other popular local events (eg samba events) in another point of culture.

This Entry is about (Issues)

Sustainability

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How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.

In 2004 and 2005 this program counted with the financial support of the Junia Rabello, and in 2007 and 2008, of UNESCO (through the Child Hope). In 2006 and was semi-finalist of the Premio Cultura Viva (Ministry of Culture) in the category of traditional events. These sponsorships are vital to the success of the project. Now the program that became part of the council that recognizes the very poor as part of the site.
Annual budget: R$ 448.823,59 (all programs)
annual revenue: R$ 110.000,00
Staff: Organization: 04 full-time registered, 12 contractors and 21 volunteers, Project: 03 volunteers and 04 volunteers.

Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? Is there a potential demand for your innovation?

It is not sustainable, we have physical space provided by the Local Government and local materials raised via sponsorship (Wallets, benches, furnaces, Aztecs, etc.). We lack resources to pay teachers, educational materials, food and other items required for personal development of young people.
Our evaluation indicates the need for creating specific disciplines of entrepreneurship and business management and also the continuity of the themes of the curriculum of the course grade.

What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?

Lack of materials and labor to conduct material and personnel transport and personnel prevents us from putting our products in other places such as in fairs and exhibitions or a website and building a suitable structure to display in the city.

What is your plan to expand or further develop your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.

In the town would like to add other forms of art to harness the tourism potential. We would have more to offer the visitor, the town becomes more attractive and therefore generate more resources. the expansion of the initiative is already happening organically, as we have multipliers in other districts teaching the work to other young people

The Story

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What is the origin of your innovation? Tell the Changemakers and media communities what prompted you to start this initiative.

Pirapora do Bom Jesus is a tourist city, famous for pilgrimages inflow, where cyclists, pedestrians, riders and motor vehicles come to worship the image of Bom Jesus. The visitor is the first Christ-Centered Sanctuary of Brazil, whose origins began in 1725 when it was discovered a image of Bom Jesus. Since then, the image is considered miraculous, attracting believers who make claims and promises to Bom Jesus. The sculpture is currently located at the Altar of the Main Church. The Department of Culture and Tourism estimates that about 600 thousand people visit annually Pirapora, losing only in number of pilgrims to Aparecida do Norte.
The Apprentice Program of Tourism founded in 1999 and forming 70 couples in the following years, in agreement with GTTP (GLOBAL TREVEL & TOURISM PARTNERSHIP) which is distributed in nine countries apart from Brazil, ( Canada, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Russia, South Africa and UK Single), did a study in 2001 that diagnosed that the City of Pirapora do Bom Jesus needed a program focused on young people and we would have to do something to raise the valorization of Tourism and the local Culture & Art and, at the same time, improve the personal development of the public.
Thus, the School of Sacred Arts emerged with the goal of professionalizing the people to art and tourism segment in terms of learning a job (in clay sculptures of saints) and guarantee a source of income through the commercialization of art for visitors, because the municipality is not endowed with any industry and lives exclusively on tourism and local trade.

Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.

The Phoenix Organization is a philanthropic organization that works with disadvantaged young people in the west of Greater São Paulo, more specifically Barueri, Santana de Parnaiba and Pirapora do Bom Jesus. It has three lines of action, Social Assistance, Career Programs and Art & Culture.
In 2009 we have 815 visits (adolescents and young people) in various courses: Fashion, Art Education and Recycling, Tech. Administration, Minor Apprentice, Digital Inclusion, Photography, Tourism and the Apprentice Project in Question of what happens in Sacred Sculptures Pirapora do Bom Jesus.

Describe some unique tourist experiences that your approach provides. Be specific; give illustrative examples.

The city is crossed by Tietê River, which was navigable before, and now serves as a tourist attraction with boat tours. Over time, the river got polluted due to the contamination that comes from Greater São Paulo. Pirapora became known only by the famous foam that invaded the city, which also deters visitors.
From 2007, with the results of the Program in Pirapora, media came back to spot the city, but this time not by the pollution of the river, but the prestige of the young craftsmen who were prominent in networks of TV programs and in Jornal Nacional, SPTV, Programa do Jô, Ação, Canal Futura, etc.., thus arousing the interest of other groups of visitors and schools among others.
Today, the School of Sacred Arts attracts visitors, both for work as outlined by the process of making these pieces, surrounded by personal and collective history of the young and the very history of the city, always related to the River.

What types of partnerships or professional development would be most beneficial in spreading your innovation?

The site set in a cooperative space, without hierarchy, and democratic and inclusive. All young artists and groups belonging to it can and should be their articulators to thereby expand and capitalize increasingly, their actions and thoughts. The mission of our Organization is working with the council and fight for public policies for culture and tourism, seeking investments for this purpose. In addition to financial resources, our need is to continue the basic modules for personal development of young people, would be means of dissemination and marketing.