released in this secondfday (13) the Diogo Sant’ana Pro-Waste Pickers and Waste Pickers Program for Popular Recycling was inspired by the lawyer and professor who, in 2010, was responsible for the action within the scope of the General Secretariat of the Presidency.
At the request of the collectors, the program was named after Diogo Sant’ana, who died in December 31th 2020, at the age of 41, after suffering an electrical discharge after touching an energized fence, in Florianópolis. He was rescued, but he couldn’t resist and died still at the scene.
“People who have a heart the size of Diogo’s never die”, said Lula in a brief speech. “The body goes away, but Diogo’s ideals are wandering here in the head of each collector”, she added.
Today we relaunched the Pro-catador honoring Diogo Sant’ana. Diogo is no longer with us, but his fruits are. A person who had a heart the size of his never dies. Fellow collectors, when you think about giving up, think of Diogo.
?: Audiovisual/PR pic.twitter.com/egruQqZKXg
— Lula (@LulaOficial) February 13, 2023
According to the executive secretary of the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture, Fernanda Machiaveli, Diogo Sant’Anna was a person who “gave a voice, within the Planalto Palace, to a social segment that is not organized, has no political representation in the National Congress”.
“It is a very fragile social segment and he became a voice within the Planalto Palace so that the rights of collectors were effective and became a really present and valued segment in the process of the recycling chain”, explained Fernanda.
Diogo was a lawyer for the National Movement of Collectors of Recyclable Materials and responsible for the Legal Framework of Social Organizations. He earned his doctorate at the University of São Paulo (USP) and completed his master’s degree in Public Administration at Harvard, at the Kennedy School of Government. Sant’Anna was one of the creators of the Christmas dos Catadores, held since 2003 with the presence of President Lula.
“Diogo is a boy from the outskirts of São Paulo, in the south zone, who grew up raised by his single mother, who was a public school teacher. He grew up in a one-bedroom house, which he shared with his mother and grandmother. And that childhood, on the periphery, was a very remarkable thing in the trajectory of who he would become as a man and as a public manager, as an activist”, said diplomat Livia Sobota, widow of Sant’Anna.
Historic
O program launched today it is an update of the former Pro-Catador Program, which was extinguished in 2020. The program’s proposal is to replace the collectors as central actors in the reuse chain of recyclable and reusable materials and to change the current model of circular economy and reverse logistics in the country.
The Pró-Catador was created during President Lula’s second government, in 2010, and brought together actions to support low-income workers who were dedicated to collecting reusable and recyclable materials. In 2020, the program was extinguished and now, with the recreation, it will be renamed.
