In the end of the 80’s, Brazil was living one of the richest discussion periods in its political life. Among the discussed topics, Urban Reform appeared as an important issue, present in the agenda of great part of the social movements.
The idea of founding CIDADE appeared in 1987. The occupation of housing blocks and the demands for basic sanitation and public transportation led Porto Alegre’s popular movements to seek support from technicians involved with their struggles.
At this moment, the movements started to receive support from the Architects Trade Union of Rio Grande do Sul. The Union offered its headquarters as a meeting space where professionals from different areas could meet with communitarian leaderships on a regular basis.
Contrary to NGO’s aiming at political instruction, CIDADE focused on technical training and capacity building in subjects related to the urban problematic. In May 1988, the assembly that founded the organization took place.We are a nongovernmental, non-for-profit organization, laic and autonomous in relation to the government and political parties. We have as our principles the right to citizenship and the autonomy of the popular movements.
The structural axis of our work is training for citizenship, knowledge about public management, analysis of social policies, research, and sharing information with participants in public spaces of communitarian organization, as well as communities in general.
We seek, in this way, to strengthen both democratic administration and community based organizations, using the Participatory Budgeting as our main tool.