Dear Collaborators and Donors,
I, Rita de Cássia dos Santos Conceição, representative of the ONG – Sou Digna Brasil, am immensely grateful for all of the donations given to the Project Sou Digna Bahia. The donations greatly contributed for the reduction of the poverty cycle that exists in our city, mainly, by helping black women in situation of socioeconomic vulnerability.
I would also like to make an appeal to all of you who continue helping this institution that was created with the sole objective of helping these women who do not have any expectative of a better future.
Likewise, the main objective of this letter is to inform you that the NGO Sou Digna USA, broke with the NGO Sou Digna Bahia, since December 31st of 2013 and to alert you that the former continues using the name of our institution to raise money without, however, transferring the money to our project.
Importantly, the NGO, Sou Digna USA, has already been notified that using the name of assistential institutions to raise donations without passing them on to the appropriate recipients constitutes the crime of lacerny. Yet, even though they were alerted that we would make a denunciation before the competent agencies, such institution remained standstill. Please find attached the letter sent by the NGO Sou Digna Bahia to the NGO Sou Digna USA.
The NGO Sou Digna USA continues using the name and the image and all of the material of our institution without due authorization. Inclusively, various donors are being tricked and deceived thinking that they are donating to help poor and black women in Salvador when in reality this money is not transferred to us.
The NGO Sou Digna Bahia maintained an agreement with the NGO Sou Digna USA, from May 2012 to December 31st 2013. From the donations received by the NGO Sou Digna USA, a small share was received by our institution. It is also worth saying that for the year 2013, the NGO Sou Digna Brasil, never received the accountability of the donations received by the NGO Sou Digna USA, while also not being informed of the destination of these financial resources.
For this reason, our institution is asking that all of the donors denounce this situation before the public agencies, because since the NGO Sou Digna USA broke with our institution and continues to use our project to receive donations for their own benefits, it is committing an illicit act and can even be framed as a CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION in accordance with that established in § 1º, of Art. 1º, of Law 12.850/2013, which provides and defines that:
It is considered “criminal organization” an association of four or more individuals structurally organized and characterized by the division of work, even if informally, with the objective to obtain, directly or indirectly, advantages of any nature, by means of practices of penal infractions, that carries a maximum prison sentence over four years, or for being of transnational character.
The NGO Sou Digna Brasil is a program that is organized around a clear notion that societal change is necessary to give women more equality and dignity. In other words, Sou Digna operates with a defined theory of social change that connects the problems that affect women in Salvador with strategies that will bring impacts in shorter and longer terms.
Our mission is to become an organization of reference in professional capacity building and female entrepreneurship in Salvador and change the reality of women in our city, by means of professional qualification and social empowerment.
Institutional Objectives
To train women in basic notions of confectionary and incentivate, through citizenship education, their involvement in the marketplace and/or in their own workplace; to help girls and women reach personal and professional growth; to expand their organizational capacity, allowing them to direct themselves strategically.
To work in the necessary fronts so that poor and black women of Salvador can reach their maximal potential, evolving beyond their limitations and contributing to a society that better welcomes diversity.
Institutional values
Sustainability, self-confidence, self-esteem, autonomy, secure environment free of violence.
Achievements of the Institution Sou Digna Bahia
Training in the area of confectionary, technology and citizenship. The community of Salvador perceives that women need to strengthen leadership, family and professional needs in order to diminish the poverty level and the number of people in situation of risk. It also identified important specific necessities for self-esteem like access to a dignifying job and a network of protection between women.
Number of beneficiaries: 120
Goals for 2014
To increase the number of women in the marketplace to 200 per year, with jobs that provide higher salaries as a result of their participation in Sou Digna;
To increase women's self-esteem, awareness of their rights, responsibilities and professional level;
To diminish a pauperized community of women through new partnership within the community of NGOs and government secretaries;
To propose an itinerant course that will attend women in communities seen as violent;
To capacitate women professionally in the area of technology, cooking, especially in the confection of cakes and fine sweets.
To train, through citizen participation, and propose reflexion on the necessity for women to be financially independent of their male partners and to be able to manage their own income.
To motivate them to a healthy family and collective coexistence;
To guide them towards a better access of their rights. e.g., to know the network of protection for women, to know lines of credits for the creation and strengthening of their income-generating activities.
To give incentive to networking, and the recognition of other women as partners and allies;
Citizenship education has helped women uniting through cooperatives of confectionary to use their knowledge towards a collective work; Sou Digna has broadened its relationship of change with other organizational institutions, guiding women towards their rights, creating networks of contacts and increasing their partnership with international organizations.
We are working together with the NGO – Bahia Street – Bahia, which is a project that attends children and teenagers in situation of social risk. To better know our project, please visit our site http://bahiastreet.org.br/ and https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sou-Digna-Construindo-Mulheres/559316504127800.
Your donations are very important for the continuity of these projects. We are counting on the solidarity of everyone.
I reiterate that we need your help to denunciate the NGO Sou Digna USA, for unduly using our project to obtain improper advantages. The NGO Sou Digna Brasil repudiates each and every form of attitude that violates the law, human rights, ethics and social morality.
For any doubts and/or clarifications, please enter in contact with us through these e-mails and phone numbers: ruasdabahia-@hotmail.com /rita@bahiastreet.org.br
With all due respect and best regards,
Salvador, February 25th 2014.
Rita de Cássia dos Santos Conceição
My company has sponsored Sou Digna since its inception, largely based on prior experience with the Executive Director (Nancy Bacon) and other volunteers, donors and workers involved in the U.S. and Brazil. The organization seems exceptionally transparent and accountable in everything it does and has achieved results well beyond what was expected based on its budget. The programs offered in Salvador, Bahia provide educational outreach to the poorest, most disadvantaged women and girls in an overall impoverished area of Brazil. Anyone interested in supporting education for girls and women of color in Brazil should consider Sou Digna as a 501c3 partner.
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