Brazilian Coalition Making Big Strides in Curbing Underage Drinking

Between the southeastern Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo— known best for it’s week-long notorious drinking Carnaval festival—the Coalizão Comunitária Antidrogas de Pindamonhangaba knew their communities had an underage drinking problem. And, like for coalitions in the United States, CADCA was there to help.

With the cooperation of all the sectors, including a semi-retired English teacher and a Roman Catholic priest, this coalition is implementing strategies to affect environmental change in Brazil. The cultural shift began with organizing themselves, especially amongst the multi-faith communities.

“Since we started the implementation of an Anti-drug Community Coalition in Brazil, I have insisted on the need to bring together all forces of good to solve this problem, always reminding people that crime is already organized. To tackle such an important problem, righteous people should not only unite, but also organize themselves,” said Father José Júlio Azarito. “What makes different groups gather in harmony is the goal they share. It makes several sectors of society, though different in nature and in the activities they perform, unite to pursue a solution for a problem that affects everyone indistinctively.”

Eliane Prado Marcondes, the coalition’s President, said getting the faith community involved has been a big part of their success. “We had just seven volunteers from the education, youth and faith sectors three years ago when we started to organize. Father Jose Julio’s leadership was very important to establishing our coalition,” Prado Marcondes said.

The coalition is in four cities now and has 120 members from all 12 sectors. While the young coalition hopes to restrict alcohol sales at Carnaval eventually, they are starting locally. Last summer, the coalition was invited to help organize a week-long rodeo and fair, EXPOVAP, an event that draws 3,000 people per night. While the minimum drinking age is 18 in Brazil, Prado Marcondes said the law is rarely enforced. So helping to organize such a large social event was a great opportunity for the coalition to get the message across that serving alcohol to underage youth is not OK.

“When we had the opportunity to explain about the need to make sure that no alcoholic beverages were sold to minors, we were so happy,” Prado Marcondes explained.

The coalition was able to get their anti-underage drinking message out via banners that were displayed on the promotional video of the fair and, for the first time, she said, all booths had to display the banner and there were people inspecting alcohol sales during the fair. After the event, fire brigade members confirmed that the fair’s new policy contributed to a reduction in the number of alcohol-related disturbances during the event.

Following that success, the coalition was invited by the city council to work on a bill to ban the consumption of alcoholic beverages in parties conducted at municipal schools in Pindamonhangaba. The coalition has data from their justice and education departments that showed students younger than 13 were drinking on a regular basis and purchased the alcohol easily at local stores.

“Our strategy is to limit the hours and places where alcohol is sold, especially near schools and where children gather,” Prado Marcondes said.

Prado Marcondes, a parent of a daughter in recovery, said she’s proud of the coalition and believes CADCA’s training on coalition development and ongoing technical assistance has made the coalition more effective.

“I hope we can be part of the process in the long term for Brazil. As a teacher, as a mother, I am very proud of what became of our coalition…That’s what makes the difference, when you have a plan, a logic model,” she said.

The Coalizão Comunitária Antidrogas de Pindamonhangaba is among 10 community coalitions throughout Brazil that CADCA has helped train and form.