The Fortaleza Capacita Program is managed by the Department of Economic Development of the City of Fortaleza (Ceará, Brazil) and offers free courses to people of legal age who want to be entrepreneurs and have some ideas to set up their own small businesses to support their families.

In order for the inhabitants of the neighborhood of Jangurussu, where the Saint Augustine of the Augustinian Recollects Psychological Center is located, to have easy access to these courses, an agreement has been signed with a duration of one year so that these courses are available and close to their beneficiaries.

Specifically, there have already been 50 beneficiaries who have received these courses during the month of October, all of them within the First Stage of Professional Qualification. Among the issues discussed are digital marketing and the use of new technologies and social networks for local businesses, price management, financial management, business management, some sales techniques, preparation of business proposals…

The courses have a workload of between 8 and 12 hours, they are totally free and they add a space for practical advice so that these women can start up their own sources of income.

CAPSA is one of the social initiatives of the Augustinian Recollects in Fortaleza, and is related to others such as Saint Monica Home, a shelter for girls and adolescents who have suffered aggression, abandonment, or any type of violence. Through CAPSA, the objective is prevention: that no girl or adolescent has to go through these attacks.

To achieve this, the best way is to break the spiral of poverty and the vicious circle of social exclusion of these families, in many cases single parents headed by a woman who, in her youth, has also suffered some kind of abuse.

Giving them the tools to maintain an autonomous, free, dignified life without serious deficiencies makes it possible to break with exclusion and prevent new generations from having to travel the same paths of abuse, exploitation or submission.