CatComm Turns 20!

Thank you to all those who joined us in celebrating Catalytic Communities’ 20th Anniversary!

It has been our privilege to have so many incredible people involved with and supporting our work over the years. September’s events were a real testament to this and we can’t tell you what a boost it was for our team, that’s working so hard right now, to connect with all that history!

Please join in the celebrations by watching the videos of our two nights’ events, where we shared a retrospective of our work amidst numerous testimonials from long-time and recent partners and supporters.

Portuguese celebration on September 22, 2020:

English celebration on September 23, 2020:

To skip to the part that interests you of the English celebration, check out the schedule below:

1. Welcome by Theresa Williamson: 0 minutes
2. Clara Ferraz describes previous night’s Portuguese-language celebration and reads testimonials from favela organizers: 3:20
3. Audience identifies itself and involvement with CatComm: 9:40
4. Tarcyla Fidalgo presents the Favela Community Land Trusts program: 12:47
5. Audience testimonials on the Favela CLT program: 22:52 (Mariangela Veronesi, Greg Rosenberg, Malcolm Childress, Marja Hoek-Smit)
6. RioOnWatch team introduces themselves and editorial work (Roseli Franco, Tatiana Lima, Julio Santos Filho, Catherine Osborn): 30:08
7. Audience testimonials on RioOnWatch: 51:20 (Ava Hoffman, Emily Zislis, Daiana Contini, Chris Harden, Armando Torres, Jamie Worms, Bryan McCann)
8. Theresa Williamson presents RioOnWatch: 01:13:15
9. Theresa Williamson presents the Sustainable Favela Network: 1:15:34
10. Theresa Williamson summarizes Covid-19 Response Work: 1:18:35
11. Audience testimonial on the Sustainable Favela Network: 1:25:05 (Leonel Ponce)
12. Theresa Williamson presents CatComm’s first decade programs: 1:28:45
13. Theresa Williamson presents CatComm’s organizational life cycle and relationship to SDGs: 1:33:50
14. Audience comments on the broad work by Catalytic Communities: 1:36:50 (Irma Ostroff, Anna Rubbo)
15. Felipe Litsek of the Favela CLT program introduces himself: 1:42:40
16. Audience comments on the broad work by Catalytic Communities: 1:46:30 (Cathy Oke, Julian Cheyne, Rizwan Tayabali)
17. Final thank you from Clara Ferraz: 1:57:20
18. Audience comments on the broad work by Catalytic Communities: 1:58:50 (David Robertson, Mariah Barber, Tatiana Lima, Patricia Stout, Julio Santos Filho)
19. Roseli Franco thanks audience and all sing ‘happy birthday!’: 2:06:14

Thank you to all who have helped us reach this incredible milestone!

And a heads up: we’ll shortly be sharing a list with close partners, supporters and readers, of twenty ways you can show your support for CatComm’s work in Rio’s favelas as we close out these celebrations. We hope everyone will pick at least one from the list to help us celebrate this significant milestone and continue to expand our support of favelas in years to come!