The Roberto Marinho Foundation was established in November in the year 1977 by the Roberto Marinho, journalist and founder of Globo Organizations – the largest communication group in South America. It is a private, non-profit, set-up with the aim of contributing to an improvement in the quality of life of the Brazilian population - through projects that integrate communication and education. Today the Foundation has projects all over Brazil, encompassing a variety of themes -such as education, communication, the environment and culture. These are made possible through partnerships with other third sector institutions, government and business.
What They Do
In 1980, the Roberto Marinho Foundation has launched the Telecurso 1 and 2 Degrees, which years later was renamed Telecurso 2000 , who teaches elementary school and secondary materials through television programs and printed handouts. This has trained four million people so far.
Over the past 30 years, Roberto Marinho Foundation has carried out several projects in the environmental, educational and cultural fields and created models and methodologies which have been implemented in partnership with both public and private sectors. The goal is to provide tools that will assure the sustainability of these programs and help people become active players to change their own destinies.
The experience in teleducation led to the creation of Canal Futura, a social communication project which is 24 hours on air and has everything to do with the Brazilian people. Futura programming includes public-interest issues, such as human rights, health, youth, sexual abuse and exploitation, as well as culture, such as movies, documentaries and programs about literature. Fully supported by the private sector, Canal Futura is all across the country, in and out the TV screen. The channel can be watched via satellite dish, FTA and cable television. Its content is also employed for educational purposes by thousands of communities, in partnership with NGOs, companies, universities and other institutions.
In a country that embraces 60% of the Amazon rainforest, one of every 10 species of plants or animals, six biomes and 12% of the world’s freshwater supply, Roberto Marinho Foundation has been broadcasting Globo Ecology for 20 years, which is the first environmentally-oriented TV program.
Roberto Marinho Foundation has conducted several campaigns for heritage conservation, restored documents, buildings and monuments and come up with several solutions for their sustainability. The Foundation has created the Museum of the Portuguese Language, the world’s first museum to be dedicated to a language, which is the greatest immaterial heritage of a nation. It also conceived the Soccer Museum, which recounts the story of Brazil from the sociological point of view of soccer.
Three new projects developed by Roberto Marinho Foundation were inaugurated in Rio de Janeiro in 2012, the Museum of Image and Sound and the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Art. The museums will combine education, sustainability, science, technology, media outlets and culture.
