Bahia Street breaks cycles of poverty, inequality and violence by providing high quality educational opportunities for economically-impoverished young women and girls in Brazil. The program was developed by African-Brazilian residents of shantytowns in Salvador, Brazil to provide a solution to what they believe to be their most pressing problems.
Founded in 1997, Bahia Street is registered as a non-profit organization in Brazil, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The infrastructure of Bahia Street is a partnership that combines the knowledge and dedication of a grassroots organization with the accountability and financial strength of an international one.
Fundamental to Bahia Street principles is that equality must exist within the infrastructure of an organization first before any lasting positive change can be effected in the outside world. Bahia Street believes that only through approaching issues of social justice and an equitable reallocation of the world’s resources as universal issues which affect us all, can a lasting shift in inequality occur.
One Bahia Street supporter recently summed up Bahia Street’s importance: “As a Brazilian and descendant from African slaves myself, I feel very grateful for the work Bahia Street is doing with girls in Salvador. I feel proud that Daza passed the exams for the University. Please continue to support her, as she faces the challenges that Brazilian colleges place in every student. She will have to fight prejudice and prove herself constantly. I wish my nieces, who live in Brazil, had a place like Bahia Street where they could find support to pursue their dreams.”
Bahia Street is located in Salvador, a city in the northeast of Brazil with a population of nearly 3 million. The city is the center of Afro-Brazilian culture, with roughly 80% of its population of African descent.
