Present for more than 20 years in Brazilian favelas, Central Única das Favelas (CUFA) promotes cultural activities related to sport, education, citizenship and art, through Hip-hop culture, promoting integration and social inclusion in the favela.
CUFA was founded by Celso Athayde, who, even though he is not at the institution, still continues as a volunteer, and won the 2022 World Economic Forum Impact and Innovation Entrepreneur award, in the Swiss city of Davos, in which the honor is offered by Schwab Foundation.
CUFA has Favela Holding as its sponsor, a group with more than 20 companies focused on the favela and which has become its economic arm. In fact, the organization even won the 2022 Caboré Award, in the marketing service category.
CUFA is present in all states of Brazil plus the Federal District, in addition to several countries, including the United States, when, in 2015, it had its Global Week, at the United Nations (UN), which granted the institution three Chairs: Housing, African Descent and Youth. On this occasion, the headquarters of CUFA Global was inaugurated, in the Bronx neighborhood, in New York.
Among the institution’s main projects are the Taça das Favelas, the largest football championship between favelas in the world, Top CUFA and the Taça das Favelas de Free Fire. CUFA is also a social partner of Expo Favela Innovation, the largest favela business fair in the world, organized by Favela Holding.
CUFA participated in Mastercard’s Strive project, which digitizes hundreds of thousands of micro-enterprises in favelas in various regions of Brazil and the world. In addition, he had extensive participation in the creation of the Social Innovation Laboratories for the Women of Favela Program, in partnership with Caixa Econômica Federal and Impact Hub.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, CUFA, in partnership with UNESCO, used its capillarity to connect the favela and the asphalt and alleviate as much as possible the difficulties that favela residents face. Through the Mães da Favela program, the institution delivered basic food baskets, physical and digital, and chips with free internet, thus ensuring greater food security and the education of many children, who needed to migrate to online classes. The benefits are directed to women in the favelas, who head their households. Due to its knowledge of these territories, CUFA understood that by supporting these women, it was possible to create a much larger protection network and, as a result, the project impacted more than 17 million people.
These actions, consequently, gave CUFA the iBest award, the country’s biggest award in the digital market, in the social actions category, and the MTV Miaw 2020 award, for the Transforma Miaw Hero in the Pandemic category, the Folha Award, among others.
In 2019, CUFA won the Caio Award in the sporting events category for organizing the Taça das Favelas, the year in which it was held for the first time in São Paulo, the city with the largest number of favelas in the country.
In 2022, the institution realized another big dream, which was the hosting of the first edition of the National Favela Cup, Favelão 2022, which had its grand finals in November, at Arena Barueri, with live broadcast on open TV.
