With events to ignite the flame of liberty, initiatives to meet the needs of the community, and programs to promote a freer future, Students For Liberty Brazil is embodying the organization’s mission.
Online Events
When COVID-19 put a stop to in-person meetings, SFL Brazil held 345 online events in five of their 27 states. Only since May, the team has provided training and helped bring the message of liberty to a total of 12,512 individuals. Ivanildo Tercerio, communications manager for Brazil said, “our coordinators are heroes” for ensuring that they did not lose momentum during the pandemic, despite some issues with internet connections.
Canceled state conferences were replaced with an online “Find Your Way” event, which represented a mixture of education and development aimed at reaching Generation Z. “We noticed Gen Z people are more anxious about the future because the world changed a lot,” Terercio said, “but they were raised in old structures created by the state.”
To teach students, they utilized the ideas found in “How To Advance Liberty” by Leonard Read, which explains that the best way to advance liberty is by being the best possible embodiment of what liberty can offer. Kicking off on September 1, the program has more than 5,000 future leaders signed up. Thank you for supporting these young people as they develop their knowledge of these many important principles.
Brazil is also taking to social media to spread their message. In the last six months, they’ve had 18 million impressions through their social media channels.
Liberty Lab
Working with local coordinators, SFL Brazil’s Liberty Lab program is creating projects that promote the principles of liberty. They have more than 100 entries so far, and will support the best of the best this coming spring.
Covering different aspects of liberty, these projects include:
- Mises Games: create games that will promote libertarianism
- Biblioteca Liberdade: an itinerant library with liberty books
- Livre da Fome [Free from hunger]: concretize libertarianism through charity
- A Verdadeira Liberdade Financeira [Financial Liberty]: teach financial skills to people in socially vulnerable situations
- AutoGoverno (Self Governance): a platform in which people can solve public needs
- Leaders for Society: teaching top students in Brazilian public schools about liberty
Through the “Resenha Pra Mim” (Review for Me) program, coordinators were incentivized to read and then review books about philosophy, politics, economics, and other principles of liberty. So far, more than 100 books have been read and reviewed through this initiative.
Taking Action in Times of Crisis
In times of crisis, people need solutions. As such, four SFL Brazil students provided much-needed free-market solutions when the Ministry of Health failed their communities. Even with blood banks facing a shortage, the Federal Attorney General’s Office asked the Federal Supreme Court to maintain restrictions on blood donation, such as restricting donations from those in the LGBT community.
Guilherme Chéquer (19), Jhone Carro (17), Amanda de Vasconcellos (19), and Luiz Paes (19) joined efforts to set up the “ Mais Sangue, Mais Vidas ” (more blood, more life) project. More than just publicizing the need for blood donation, the four SFLB leaders partnered with companies and entities to offer gifts to those who make a donation. Their action got the attention of more than 100,000 people and was featured in newspapers in the State of Sao Paulo and the State of Minas.
Continuing to Work for Liberty
After leaving SFL Brazil, many students continue to work for liberty. Italo Cunha enrolled in one of our leadership programs, founded a club, and became state coordinator for Rio de Janeiro where he initiated a project to adapt the activities to the local culture. He went on to work on a privatization program for Sao Paulo’s City Hall, and has now founded Juddi, a law tech firm.
According to Italo, “The mission of SFL is to empower young students in defense of freedom, but it does much more than that. As someone who flew on a plane for the first time because I won a ticket from the organization, seeing the strength of the leadership and the individuals, I can say SFL changes the course of a lifetime, certainly adds more to freedom, and helps to empower students.”
When you support Students For Liberty, you support students like these who are contributing to the development of a freer future. To invest in the future of liberty, click on the button below.
