Por Taís Oliveira
The Portuguese version is available here!
I was revisiting the retrospective of my work from 2022, and with so many feelings mixed in with the memories, I thought it was important to do one for 2024 as well.
The Instituto Sumaúma, organization that I founded and am the Executive Director of, was officially launched in 2022, but as a good PR planner, this organization was conceived since 2020.
In line with other professional and academic activities, I organized myself very well to put into practice something that concentrates everything that has nourished me throughout these 15 years of experience, what I like to do, and what I am good at professionally.
So, counting the entire initial stage of structural design, definition of organizational principles, and mobilization of resources, in 2024, more specifically in December, we completed 4 years of the Sumaúma Institute.
2024 was another year of hard work, and all my work reflects my pride in what I have built, what I have become, and the results of my services, political advocacy, and projects. Above all, I am very proud of the partnerships and connections established in this construction. At this point in my journey, I am certain this was the best decision I have made in my professional career.
In this first moment of 2025, I will share what we have done here. To avoid being boring, I will divide it into several posts, starting with the services provided.
I want to invite anyone who wants to discuss our projects and services. Feel free to message me, and we can schedule a coffee. 😉
Services Provided
The Sumaúma Institute is a non-profit organization, but one of the strategies for financial sustainability of projects and institutional strengthening is providing services. This past year, we had the first incredible and highly desired partnerships and the return of other services that fill us with pride.
At the beginning of the year, we conducted the technical research “Cabelos sem Limites, como Nós” (Hair without Limits, like Us) in partnership with the RPretas Public Relations Agency to Unilever.
The knowledge acquired in this research equipped the communications team to build the strategy for launching the new Seda Boom product line. For this service, we had the specialized consultancy of the Anthropologist Larisse Pontes, who contributed significantly with all her knowledge about the relationship between hair and identity and in analyzing the results.
Every time I see commercials on TV or digital platforms, I am very proud of their delivery and how rigorous research can contribute to excellent strategies based on respect for diversity and plurality. You can find out more here.
We also held a Preparatory Course for Graduate Selections in partnership with Sesc São Paulo – Research and Training Center. This partnership was aimed at employees of the Sesc network and is also open to the general public. The demand for vacancies filled in less than 30 minutes. It was a success.
It was incredible to follow the group, their projects, their dreams, and the development of their proposals. We are very grateful to Dulci Lima for her welcome and all the support during this journey, as well as all the other employees of Sesc CPF.
In this demand, we had a team of always fabulous tutors. Many thanks to Abraão Filipe Oliveira, Fabia Pereira da Silva, Helen Rose Santos, João Raphael da Silva, Lídia Michelle Azevedo, Dra. Lina Moreira, Marcus Vinícius Bomfim, Maria Fernanda Ruas and Tarcizio Silva.
If your organization would like to invest in the academic training of its employees, Master’s and Doctorates are an excellent opportunity for improvement. We have six years and five editions of experience with the Preparatory Course, so it would be amazing to adapt a version to the needs of your internal audience. 😉
For the second year, in partnership with Desvelar, we worked on developing the Ancestralidades Program for the Appreciation of Research Report. This report uses methods such as Social Network Analysis to list the main themes and bibliographies used in the works received in the call for proposals and thus contribute to future reflections.
It is always a huge learning experience to deal with this service provision; it is wonderful to see different knowledge, points of view, references, and territorial and cultural issues being brilliantly debated in these academic studies.
Of course, we have the added benefit of making a delivery that also aims to improve the Appreciation of Science Program and its derivatives, which motivates us and makes us very happy with the contributions of our analyses. I want to take this opportunity to thank Diego Galofero for your technical collaboration, which was essential in this demand.
For the second year in a row, we collaborated on elaborating the annual report of Museu das Favelas, specifically in preparing the text and aligning the narrative of the material, which was brilliantly conducted by researcher and journalist Suewellyn Cassimiro.
Finally, we also carried out mediation and advisory requests for lectures, classes, and workshops, which we recommend to our network of researchers who are experts in topics such as technology, communication, planning, public relations, diversity, race, racism, and anti-racism.
In this type of demand, we follow the requests from the first contact to the post-event, including negotiation, schedule alignment, contract, payment, production, and closing.
So, if you plan your agenda for corporate events, congresses, and other dialogues with academics and researchers, please request our portfolio. 😉
In short, we conducted research, produced documents and reports, provided technical training in the field of investigation, and provided consultancy for academic and corporate events. It was a very productive year, and we already have an open discussion agenda on service provision in 2025.
I will be back soon to tell you how 2024 went in terms of carrying out Projects and Political Advocacy, Events, Scientific Dissemination, and Collaborations. 😉
