The Trata Brasil Institute was launched this Tuesday, October 2. It is a nonprofit entity comprised of several private companies, NGOs and personalities that support the project’s initiative. The Institute’s objective is to debate the issue of basic sanitation and promote effective actions to universalize the country’s sewage treatment.

The launch gathered representatives from society, from partner companies like Amanco, Braskem, Colgate, Caloi, Editora Globo, Medley, Solvay Indupa, Tigre, Brazilian Association of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering (ABES), Association of Sales and Marketing Directors of Brazil (ADVB), Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV), Coca-Cola Institute and Pastoral da Criança, as well as representatives from the national press and other personalities.   
  
The Institute’s main objectives are to promote actions, inform and make the population aware of the importance and right to garbage collection and sewage treatment, as well as encourage its participation in neighborhood and city planning decisions and to demand effective actions from public authorities.

At the inauguration, Luis Felli, the Institute’s president, spoke about his satisfaction in participating in a project that intends to contribute to improvements in basic sanitation, and consequently, Brazilian public health. The event also included brief presentations by professionals connected to the area who exposed their views on the size of the sanitation problem in the country.

At the time, Dr. Arthur Timerman, Master’s in Infectology from USP, presented the alarming data on the topic. The specialist warned about the high infant mortality rate that he said is closely linked to diseases caused by the lack of basic sanitation, such as diarrhea.  In Brazil, seven children die every day due to diseases linked to this problem.

Marcelo Néri, head of the Social Policies Center/IBRE and the Getúlio Vargas Foundation’s EPGE, presented numbers on sanitation in Brazil. Today, more than half of Brazil’s population, 51.5%, has no treated sewage at home. He says the creation of the Trata Brasil Institute "is the opportunity to truly bring sewage to the surface for discussion".

At the end of the presentations, videos were shown of artistic and sports personalities who support the Institute’s initiative, as well as testimony by cartoonist Ziraldo, who contributed to the project by creating a handout in comic book format, and Dr. Zilda Arns, founder of the Pastoral da Criança, an institution that is a world reference in the eradication of infant mortality. 

For more information access: http://www.tratabrasil.com.br/