Questions and answers

Unfortunately, we do not serve individuals. We recommend that you seek assistance of the Public Attorney of your state or city. In São Paulo, the contacts of Defensoria are Avenida da Liberdade, 32 – Liberdade Tel. (11) 3105-5799 – more information at http://www.defensoria.sp.gov.br/dpesp/ . In other states, see http://www.anadep.org/wtk/pagina/initial

No. Conectas promotes strategic advocacy and public interest activities, and is not in the service of any Brazilian company or government.

No. The organisation is non-partisan, has no ties and receives no benefits from political parties.

Conectas guides its actions from strategic and operational planning – both developed with broad participation of the whole team. The objectives, strategies and activities contained in the plans are defined with full autonomy and submitted to the Conselho Deliberativo of the organisation, which has 12 members, with two-year terms, and an Executive Committee, made up of 5 people. Donors of the organisation do not participate in planning and implementation.

Conectas is funded by private Brazilian and international foundations and by development agencies. A complete list of our donors is available here. Conectas does not accept donations from the Brazilian government. All Conectas financial transitions are audited independently. In 2013/2014, Price Water House Coopers is responsible for external audit. The organisation’s financial statements and annual reports are accessible here.

Through a team of more than 30 people working at the organisation’s headquarters in São Paulo, Brasília (Brazil) and Geneva (Switzerland). The team is made up of people of different nationalities, areas of action and academic and professional backgrounds. In addition, the organisation relies on regional connectors working at the headquarters of the organisation and works in partnership with numerous partners in social movements, other NGOs, academics, journalists and human rights defenders.

It is because Brazil is part of an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world. Violations that occur against Haitian migrants in the interior of Acre, for example, can only be effectively dealt with by means of measures based on relevant entities as the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, USA, and the Council Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as in liaison with partner organizations in Port-au-Prince, Haiti itself, and actions involving border countries such as Peru and Bolivia. Since its foundation, Conectas has strengthened connections between human rights organisations in the Global South through a major international colloquium and the publication of an international magazine called SUR, distributed to more than 100 countries. As every international problem is rather a local problem for some community, this coordinated action across borders is fundamental. Thus, the actions developed at the domestic level by the Justice system are conducted in synergy with the work carried out by the Foreign Policy and Human Rights programme, functioning as integrated and complementary areas, never exclusive.

Conectas is an organisation founded, based, and positioned to work in synergy between organisations of Global South (Africa, Asia and Latin America), region where 80% of the world’s population is, and where there are serious violations of human rights. That said, violations in the North become the object of Conectas’ interest whenever they involve countries in the South, such as illegal detention of citizens from several Middle Eastern countries in Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba by the US authorities, which the organisation has already addressed, for example, in one of the issues of the International Colloquium on Human Rights.

By examining two variables: the need for context at stake and the ability of the organisation to intervene positively in the same state of affairs, either directly or through dialogues with local partners.