Clothes, plants and planners are some of the options for Christmas gifts disclosed in the “Catalogo de Quebrada”, a publication that reaches its sixth edition this December. The project promotes the products of 80 entrepreneurs (76 of whom are women) from the outskirts of São Paulo, with the objective of encouraging local commerce at the time of greatest consumption of the year.
The catalog, available online, was created by Bora Lá, which defines itself as a popular communication and marketing agency. “While quebrada people didn’t think of communication as something essential, something for the business to move forward. You have to show the community, to the quebrada, what you’re doing,” says Ju Dias, 40, executive president of Bora Lá .
Raised in Jardim Vera Cruz, in Jardim Ângela, south of São Paulo, and trained in advertising and marketing, Ju worked for years in multinationals, until she was fired in 2016 and decided to invest in her own business.
At the time, she lived downtown and returned to live with her mother in the south side. “During that time, I rediscovered a ravine that I hadn’t had access to until then. I started going to the soirees, meeting leaders, social movements that are very strong”, he recalls. “Then, in 2017, I decide that I no longer want to find work abroad, my whole life has been that. I’m going to work on my own”, he decided.
That’s how Bora Lá came about. The company offers design, communication strategy and social media services to other businesses in the suburbs. In these five years of existence, the agency has served more than 160 clients.
In the case of “Catalogo de Quebrada”, the idea arose in 2020, when the agency no longer had as many jobs as before due to the pandemic, but at the same time it had the same need to continue strengthening local commerce.
“I was thinking about what could add up. I made myself available to do some work, to publicize the information produced by local media on the networks, and from then on, a business began to develop that gave rise to the catalogue”, says Ju.
The financial situation of her sister, Josiane, was present in the development of the project idea. Jo, as she is known in the neighborhood, has been making Easter eggs for over 12 years and, at the beginning of the pandemic, the sale of this product by residents of the suburbs was affected.
“There was the issue of decreasing orders and she didn’t sell. Other sisters in entrepreneurship groups that I participate in were also talking about this”, recalls Ju.
“I talked about making art for free for those who need to publicize the work immediately. So I thought I could take these women, put them together, make an art for each one, save it in a PDF and shoot it to our network, publicize them collectively”.
The first edition of the catalog had 16 entrepreneurs, most from the south of the capital, who signed up for free using an online form. Since then, six editions have been published, always on commemorative dates such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Christmas.
Elaine Souza, 48, is one of the entrepreneurs whose work has been publicized by the project since its first edition. A resident of Vila Prudente, on the east side, she changed the legal environment to venture into gastronomy.
Her company, Batuque na Cozinha, works with assembling tables for corporate events, such as coffee breaks and get-togethers. “Before, it was just to make a little money, but it became my real profession, I became a professional”, says Elaine.
The last sale she managed to make through the Quebrada Catalog was in this year’s Easter edition, when a woman in France found her page and placed an order for chocolates for family members in São Paulo.
“It was really cool, the person being there on the other side of the world, seeing the photo and trusting that you’re going to do something cool, that you’ll be representing her. The chocolate had to arrive with every demonstration of affection, in the form of flavor, of presentation”.
Although there were no sales in the next edition, Mother’s Day, and in the current one, Elaine says that the visibility the company receives through the catalog is as important as the financial return.
“If I don’t sell today, I’m being seen and can be remembered at another time or occasion. For me, it’s all a consequence,” she says.
According to Bora Lá, 43 of the 57 businesses registered for the Mother’s Day edition gave feedback on the campaign. Fifteen reported having sold some product, and only two businesses said they had not gained any followers on their social media profile after the disclosure.
Andressa Catarine, 34, is promoting her company in the catalog for the first time in this Christmas edition. A resident of Cangaíba, on the east side, she is an IT (Information Technology) process analyst and plays together with her fiance Ayo Black, a sustainable fashion and accessories brand.
Her story is similar to Ju and Elaine’s. After leaving a formal job around 2017, she bet on entrepreneurship, first with the resale of plus size lingerie and then with the sale of printed shirts.
“Since then I have been specializing in both entrepreneurship and sewing, and today all the sewing, fabric purchase, modeling, Ayo design part is done by me”, explains Andressa, who claims to be an admirer of the Catalog project.
“It’s a form of commerce that we only see being used by a few large companies in the market, bringing it to the periphery is a very cool idea.”
Andressa and Ayo Black represent well the profile of entrepreneurs present in the publication. The current edition of the Catalog has 76 women among the 80 disclosed, and 69.5% of entrepreneurs identified themselves as black, black or brown.
According to Ju Dias, the idea is to make more editions of the Catalog in 2022, even if the pandemic subsides and the city returns to solidarity economy fairs.
“It would be really cool if we were able to build a website, where you could filter by neighborhood, but without direct sales. The idea is very cool, it has this power to publicize collectively, to be a collective project, not to charge sales fees “, projects Ju.
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I have over 8 years of experience in the news industry. I have worked for various news websites and have also written for a few news agencies. I mostly cover healthcare news, but I am also interested in other topics such as politics, business, and entertainment. In my free time, I enjoy writing fiction and spending time with my family and friends.
