Maranhão

Pará

13/12/24

On December 10, the Vale Foundation was honored with the 2024 Highlights Award by the National Land Transportation Agency (ANTT) for its project “The Carajás Railway as a vector of socio-productive inclusion and environmental preservation in the Amazon”, which told the story of the Women of Maranhão Network and won first place in the Interaction with Society category. The awarded initiative promotes entrepreneurship among families living along the Carajás Railway (EFC), who used to sell their products through the windows of the railway’s old passenger train. The Territory Manager at the Vale Foudation, Marcus Finco, explained:    

“We had about 400 women selling their products through the train’s windows since the railway was built. However, in 2015, Vale modernized the train, making it fully air-conditioned, which no longer allowed window openings. The families were about to lose their main source of income, so we took action, went into the field, organized productive groups that turned into formal businesses, and later began selling not only in Maranhão but also across Brazil and, in some cases, internationally. From them came Brazil’s first organic babassu product, that promotes the socio-biodiversity chain of the Maranhão Amazon”, he commented during the award ceremony.  

The event, held at ANTT headquarters in Brasília, brought together representatives of highway and railway concessionaires, as well as cargo and passenger transport companies, who stood out for their innovative actions during the year. In addition to the Women of Maranhão Network, two other projects secured first-place awards for EFC: “Smart monitoring and risk reduction at level crossings using AI”, in the Safe Routes category, and “Indicator expressed by the lowest railway accident rate”, in the Road Safety category.