The Projeto Bagagem is an NGO whose mission is to encourage the use of community based tourism as a tool for valorization and sustainable development of tourism in Brazil. The project was born in 2002 from two friends’s dream to transform the world through solidary trips and involved hundreds of people through its journey.
When it has been created, 15 years ago, Projeto Bagagem was focused on creating solidary trips in several communities, mainly in Amazon. It counted 29 groups, involving 287 tourists. Few years after the NGO took on the lead to encourage those communities development through the implementation of the project all over Brazil, with an emphasis on Chapada Diamantina city (Bahia state) and Paraty city (Rio de Janeiro state). At the occasion of the MTur call for bid (2008), Projeto Bagagem received funds to promote and boost the Rede Brasileira de Turismo Solidário e Comunitário network (TURISOL) that existed since 2003 but never had the chance yet to realize a proper encounter. The I Turisol Meeting was realized in Bahia in 2010. During this year the NGO also edited 7 publications about the Projeto Bagagem in itself and about the 6 more active initiatives of the network at this moment : Rede Tucum, Acolhida na Colônia, Saúde e Alegria, Fundação Casa Grande, Pousada Uacari and Aldeia dos Lagos. After a hibernation time, a new board took over the NGO direction with the mission to reactivate the network. The II Turisol Meeting was organized in Brasília (2015), counting more than 180 participants from everywhere in Brazil, and strengthen the Projeto Bagagem as an crucial actor of the initiativas and partners of community based tourism gathering.
The Projeto Bagagem was considered an inovative social business by the Global Development Network (2006), won the Seed Awards UN award (2007), conquered funders such as Kellog Foudation, Ashoka, Tam and the Tourism Minister, represented Brazil in events in South Africa (2007), Guiana (2011) and Nicaragua (2014). Now in a new phase, Projeto Bagagem intends to be a room to share its own story and experiences, and above all a room to gather contents, comments and knowledges of the most various actors involved and interested in community based tourism. Gathering, sharing, steady co-creation : a crowdsourced think tank! Our new objective is to stimulate the collective intelligence in the brasilian community based tourism field, assimilating it to the best of other initiatives and groups in the world.
Communitarian initiatives representatives, NGOs, governments, operators, entrepreneurs, academicians : be welcome!