Promoting Social Inclusion for Rural Youth in Northeast Brazil

One of the challenges for social inclusion in development projects is to make the potential benefits accessible to the most vulnerable. In a country as diverse and vast as Brazil, adaptive, flexible, and innovative approaches are necessary, built participatively from local realities.

Challenges range from the size of the territory to internet access, with only 22% of Brazilians aged 10 and older having satisfactory connectivity. This adds to the inequality in education access, with half the population over 25 lacking a high school diploma. Particularly in rural areas, where 15% of Brazilians aged 16 to 29 lived, this number rises to 24.8% in the Northeast, the highest in the country.

The rural exodus, especially among the youth, is a major sustainability challenge. Brazil’s rural population reduction is nearly double the global average, with a 33.8% reduction between 2000 and 2002, compared to the global 19.2%.

This context led the Ceará Rural Development and Sustainable Competitiveness Project Phase II, known as São José IV, to identify major barriers to youth inclusion and promoting sustainable social development opportunities.

The Rural Youth Call

In 2020, a series of actions were designed exclusively for rural youth, particularly in family farming, considering gender and other priority groups like Indigenous Peoples, quilombolas, black people, artisanal fishers, and others traditional communities.

The outcome was a pioneering social inclusion initiative: the Rural Youth Call, supporting non-agricultural activities and fostering youth leadership by directly transferring resources to young people without intermediaries. Historically, rural projects in Brazil support producer organizations and cooperatives collectively.

The strategy was organized in three stages. The first involved registration and expression of interest. Four hundred were selected for the second phase, which included training in entrepreneurship, project planning, and management for agricultural and non-agricultural projects. Finally, 297 intervention projects were chosen among those who completed the training.

Intervention projects received technical and financial support, with up to US $3,000 disbursed per project. 286 youths completed all three stages of the call. The Rural Youth initiative invested US$ 900,000 in individual youth projects that finished the training and developed viable investment projects.

By providing direct funding to individual initiatives, the call became a transformative tool, capable of changing these youths’ perspectives on life, seizing opportunities, and believing in their dreams.

That was how Victor Alan, 24, ended up on the runways of São Paulo Fashion Week 2024 featuring his filé lace art in the Catarina Mina brand collection. After receiving support from the Rural Youth Call, Victor invested in his art. He is one of the few artisans still working with filé lace, an ancient and laborious technique. 

The selected youths developed income-generating initiatives involving agricultural and non-agricultural activities, now being implemented in 87 municipalities in Ceará.

Innovation

The call introduced a unique registration format. Youths were invited to tell their story via video, explaining how the proposed project could change their lives. Additionally, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the expression of interest occurred electronically through a specific form.

This strategy allowed low-education-level youths and those with disabilities to apply. One visually impaired and one hearing impaired youth were selected, marking a turning point for the project. Subsequently, other accessibility actions were developed, like audio descriptions and sign language interpretation.

Photos by Gabriel Hoewell/Handout and Sabrina Bizungais/Handout

Fabiene Evangelista Lopes (left), one of the selected youths, received financing and technical assistance for an apiary. “At first, it seemed difficult, but I thought it would be good to face it. I decided to fight until the end. And here I am,” says Fabiene, proudly identifying as a beekeeper.

Now, with 100% project implementation, Fabiene has all the necessary protective equipment to set up her family’s apiary and dreams of having her own honey house. With an average production of 400 kilograms of honey per month per flowering season, divided with a partner, beekeeping represents half the family income.

Sabrina Bizungais (right) is the creator of Flor do Sertão, a rural and sustainable business focused on producing organic and agroecological food, as well as ornamental plants. “I have encountered countless challenges in the formal job market. Most of them faced by most of rural youth – the lack of opportunity, encouragement, and support to stay in the rural areas.”

In the São José Youth Call, Sabrina proposed the development of a traceability system that aims to combine technology with life in the rural areas. With the Project's resources, she built a structured greenhouse with climatization and environment control to avoid the loss of seedlings in the community.

Lessons Learned

1. Inclusion Requires Engagement

Listening to the diverse realities of rural youth through a broad process of engagement is a must. Therefore, São José IV adopted the term “youths,” recognizing the plurality and diversity of experiences. At the end of the previous project phase, lessons learned were discussed, as part of stakeholder engagement process. When asked what could be improved in a future project, the immediate response was to include, train, and support individual youth businesses. Thus, the call responded to the beneficiaries’ demands.

2. Creativity, Boldness, and Persistence
The path is often new and full of unknown challenges, so it needs to be created while walking. Directly transferring financial resources to young people without intermediary entities was unprecedented in both the project and the state of Ceará, as well as in World Bank-supported agricultural projects in Brazil.

It required daring to establish specific laws and regulations to support rural youth, ensuring legal backing for direct resource transfers. The result was a paradigm shift for all governmental actions targeting youths—a monumental step.

3. Scale and Continuity
Reaching as many beneficiaries as possible means not leaving anyone behind. Given resource scarcity, this is not always possible. Hence, the São José Project’s inclusion strategy is considered a pilot. They plan, implement, and evaluate.

The ultimate goal is to showcase that living and working in rural areas is viable by highlighting young community role models. For the first time, the state recognizes rural youth as a specific group that deserves attention. Overcoming challenges shows that developing public policies for these segments, especially youth, is possible and crucial for rural sustainability.