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// area of work

social innovation

We invest in grassroots impact leaders who transform their territories — with training, grants, seed capital, space and networks. The turnaround doesn't come from outside; it comes from the periphery itself.

In Brazil, 12.4 million people live in extreme poverty and 8.1 million are unemployed. In the peripheries, those who start ventures to solve their own territory’s problems almost always do so without access to credit, training, workspace or networks — the same old barriers, now reproduced inside the impact ecosystem.

The periphery is tech, is pop, is innovation. Even when the doors don’t appear, the quebradas keep inventing paths — they build community networks, create impact businesses with what they have at home, teach their territory what they have learned. As our manifesto says, the turnaround doesn’t come from outside: it comes from the periphery itself when it has access to opportunity, tools, connections and respect. Every impact leader is an agent of transformation who deserves support and encouragement — and that is exactly what we have been doing since 2022 with PerifaImpacto, Inova Quebrada and the Quebrada em Movimento hub: journeys that develop entrepreneurial and cultural-production skills, with scholarships, seed capital, physical space, advisory support and the network needed for territory-born solutions to reach the rooms where decisions are made.

money in the hands of those who do the work.

Rebalancing power starts where power actually circulates: resources. From 2022 to 2026, Casa Hacker transferred R$ 1.78 million (BRL) directly to initiatives and people — scholarships and project investments effectively paid and verified in our accounting. This is not project budget passing near the periphery: it is money changing hands.

The funds are the instrument: Fundo da Quebrada supports, with resources and training, impact projects led by residents of the Campo Grande district in Campinas; and the Active Citizenship Fund — run with Grupo Primavera and Ozipa Criativa, with support from the FEAC Foundation — allocated in Call 01/2026 a total of R$ 225,000 (BRL) to 30 community initiatives from the territories of the Conexão Quilombo Amarais, Quebrada em Movimento and Ozipa Criativa hubs. Those who evaluate, select and account for the resources are also from the territory: the call exists to widen the access of leaders, collectives and civil society organizations to resources that rarely reach the grassroots.

the hub belongs to the territory.

Quebrada em Movimento was born in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, in partnership with the FEAC Foundation — and since 2023 it has kept an open, free coworking space in the Campo Grande District for non-profit use. That is where the learning tracks happen, along with Quebrada Talks, the hardware workshops, the advisory sessions — and the group therapy meetings, because sustaining an impact hustle without caring for mental health is a recipe for burnout, and peripheral leadership is not disposable.

The stories of those who went through the programs became the web series “No Corre com a Wal” (2023) — entrepreneurs telling, in their own voices, how they transformed their territories. The curve follows: from 10 people reached in 2022 to 78 in 2025, with PerifaImpacto scaling to São Paulo from 2025 on.

the quebrada takes its place in the ecosystem.

Since 2023 we have been part of the Coalizão pelo Impacto and run PerifaImpacto Impact Businesses with ICE — Instituto de Cidadania Empresarial; in 2025, we took peripheral leaders to Expo Favela Innovation, because presence in ecosystem spaces is not a showcase: it is access to networks, capital and opportunity that historically circulate far from the grassroots. Our commitment, as the manifesto says, is to keep shifting the center — taking the periphery out of the footnotes of the conversation and placing it as the lead author of the answers to the challenges of our time.

And what we learn by walking alongside the leaders — from the 12-month training journeys to the Individual Development Plans, from agile management to beneficiary experience — is documented and published: social innovation is the area with the most learnings in our library, because a social technology that isn’t shared becomes a secret, and secrets don’t transform territories.

We believe there is no one better than the communities themselves to develop their territories — our role is to rebalance power, putting resources, knowledge and networks in the hands of those already doing the work.

// what we believe
// how we work

da teoria à prática

  1. We keep open, free coworking spaces in the territories — in the Campo Grande District, since 2023 — for non-profit use.

  2. We offer entrepreneurial education tracks — cultural production, management, finance, fundraising, communication, territorial mapping and public policy advocacy.

  3. We grant incentive scholarships for entrepreneurs to begin their studies in entrepreneurship and sociocultural impact.

  4. We provide seed capital through open calls and support funds — such as Fundo da Quebrada and the Active Citizenship Fund — for leaders to start impact initiatives and businesses.

  5. We add advisory support, psychological care and access to networks — from Quebrada Talks to impact-ecosystem events, from Expo Favela to the Coalizão pelo Impacto.

  6. We document and publish what we learn with the leaders — social innovation is the area with the most learnings in our library.

// who makes it happen

the initiatives in this area

// what we learn by doing

learnings from this area

browse the library →

Libras: Accessibility and Inclusion in the Campo Grande Territory

The project Libras, the Language of Inclusion offered free Libras classes to the Campo Grande community, with support from Hub Quebrada em Movimento through the Active Citizenship Fund Call for Proposals. Janaína Oliveira's initiative promoted four meetings at Casa de Cultura Itajaí, bringing together students, interpreters, and deaf guests to discuss communication, accessibility, and the barriers faced by the deaf community.

pesquisa

Far from the centre: what the 2022 Census shows about the periphery of Campinas

333,939 people, 29.3% of Campinas, live 10 km or more from the center. There, the median income of the head of household is R$ 2.567, compared to R$ 3.791 nearby, and there are more Black and brown people, more children, and less piped sewage. But distance doesn't explain everything: direction also matters.

Data is the new oil. But who holds the key to the safe?

Data can help social projects understand their audiences, evaluate strategies, and make decisions. Drawing on project management experience and training from the Active Citizenship Hubs, this text reflects on who produces, interprets, and uses this information, and on the importance of democratizing data access in local territories.

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