Ballet Manguinhos, named for its favela in Rio de Janeiro, returns to the stage after a long absence during the COVID-19 pandemic. It counts 250 children and teenagers from the favela as its performers. The ballet group provides social support in a community where poverty, hunger and teen pregnancy are constant issues.

Venezuela's community of refugees and migrants in Boa Vista, Brazil is fighting misinformation with the community radio programme La Voz de los Refugiados. In a studio that works as a radio laboratory inside a refugee shelter, eleven volunteers record podcasts answering questions from the community and thus fighting misinformation about COVID-19, documents, access to rights in Brazil, job search and other topics.

In the heart of the Amazonas state, young Brazilian communicators had a powerful idea to teach prevention against COVID-19 in a soft and playful way for indigenous children. “I feel privileged to be part of something that can impact many people's lives,” says Anderson Teles Marques, 28-year-old video editor and photographer and member of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (Coiab, in Portuguese).

Denise Cardoso has partnered with companies in São Paulo and Salvador to take up sales for family farms in northeastern Bahia.

Brazilian activist Paloma Costa is creating a new generation of youth engaged in climate activism. At the age of 27, she led Brazil's delegation to the Youth Climate Summit in 2019, and coordinated the climate working group at Engajamundo, which invited youth to participate in "Fridays for the future" and climate strikes. The organization was born following the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio + 20. During the event, which took place almost 10 years ago, many young people felt that their views had not been adequately represented by world leaders and UN agencies.

Top Brazilian designers led a workshop earlier this year to teach victims of slave labor a new and more dignified career in fashion. The workshop is part of the "Slave Labour Never Again" project: a collaboration among the Public Ministry for Employment, the  International Labour Organization (ILO) and the University of Campinas (Unicamp). 

Everyone stayed inside their homes in 2020 because of the pandemic and in-person learning at school in the small city of Vigia, in Pará, Brazil was suspended. For students like Ágata Melo, 8 years old, not only did she lose contact with her teachers, she lost an entire year of school.

Estephany Oliveira, 22, a college student whose studies were interrupted by COVID-19, considered those who might be more at risk during the pandemic. She founded Solidarity Laranjal with her friends to deliver food to impoverished and isolated families in Northern Brazil.

To help Palmeirinha, a favela in the northern zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, Lays dos Santos, 21, started a youth-driven Eu Vivo Favela (I Live Favela) group to assist the community.

It is essential to share reliable and easy to read information so that people can protect themselves against COVID-19 in the right way. "This is why Turma da Mônica (Monica and Friends) is collaborating with the United Nations," said Brazilian cartoonist Mauricio de Sousa in an interview with the United Nations Information Centre for Brazil (Unic Rio).