CEPEL

CEPEL - Centro de Estudos e Pesquisas da Leopoldina (Center of Study and Research of Leopoldina) is a non-profit and non-governmental organization that is cross-party, cross-religious and a state entity of public use. It was created in 1988 (1988-2006) with the objective to supply aids for the population of the Leopoldina area and, in particular, to the social movements organized in this region that aimed for better life conditions. Funded by professionals of the National School of Public Health (ENSP/Fiocruz) and lead by the researchers Victor Vincent Valla and Eduardo Stotz together with popular leaders of the Leopoldina region, for as long as it functioned, CEPEL permanently kept up with the paths of the lower class population that inhabited this area. In this perspective, it would be a non-governmental organization that offers systematic technical aid to organized popular groups, in its search to press government to spend public money primarily around the basic necessities (such as sanitation, medical assistance and quality public education) of the majority of the population, that being the lower social classes.

There were years of coexistence with the population of favelas from the area, with health agents whose development resulted on the production of a Informational System of Local Level ( Sistema de Informação a Nível Local – SINAL), the creation of an

archive of indicators who considered the life experience of the population, registering and systematizing the informations for the consultation of the population itself. The idea was to empower the organized social movements, that focused , for example, on the fought for the rights of quality water going to the water tank of the houses every day.

Between other activities, CEPEL has:

• Registered documents, kept and disclosed the CED-VIDA - Centro de Documentação sobre as condições de vida da Leopoldina; (Center of documentation about the life conditions of Leopoldina);
• Permanently updates the registry of entities and groups that acted in the area of popular education and health in Leopoldina;
• Edited and published trimestrale the tabloid “SE LIGA NO SINAL” and the thematic folder “CADERNO S”;
• Worked on the creation of partnerships with organized groups through advice and technical support;
• Was seated at the District Health Council of AP.3.1.