Created at the height of the military dictatorship CESE sought to offer a sign of hope by adopting an ecumenism of service aimed at the defence of rights, in other words a politicized service to meet the needs of the social movements and support effective measures to change the conditions of the most vulnerable, marginalized and excluded populations. Since then, CESE has asserted a new concept of diakonia, going beyond the welfare approach, tackling the causes of Brazil’s main social problems and positioning itself alongside the most vulnerable, seeking modes of organization, mobilization and education that transform reality.
For five decades, CESE has functioned as a point of convergence between the churches, sources of funding and grassroots movements. It has focused its activities on grassroots social movements and action expressed through various forms of organization: community cooperation; associations, cooperatives, and grassroots groups; churches, ecumenical and other faith-based organizations; local, regional and national social movements; networks, forums and other forms of networking. Priority organizations are those that identify with the ethical principles that guide CESE’s work, have a capacity for mobilization and for the construction of community alternatives and/or seek to intervene in public policy at various levels (from the local to the national), and demonstrate the potential to run coordinated activities.
CESE’s permanent, long-term Institutional Aims are as follows:
To strengthen grassroots social movements and organizations.
To strengthen ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue and support for grassroots causes.
To ensure its own institutional robustness and sustainability over time.
