In a partnership with Mário Quintana Culture House, Copesul promoted many activities in order to pay homage to the Rio Grande do Sul State’s poet in the year of its centennial birthday.

Approximately 12 thousand people participated in the activities of the Man-Nature project, designed for broadening reflections regarding this relationship.

Portrait of the country’s cultural diversity, the Contemporary Brazil event gathered in a single concert samples of music produced in different regions of Brazil.

Copesul stand at the 52nd Porto Alegre Book Fair.

Montenegro Culture Station

Objective: inauguration of the recovery works made on the old Montenegro Railway Station, a centennial building which had been deactivated over 25 years ago. The Montenegro Culture Station will be located in this building, housing the environmental center and the center for the city’s social-cultural activities.

Partnership: Entity for Philanthropy, Culture and Art (Efica) and Montenegro City Hall

Location: Montenegro city

Audience reached (estimated): 18 thousand people in workshops, courses and events.

Culture Station, old railway station of Montenegro city.

Meetings with the Professor

Objective: sponsorship to this event conducted by journalist, writer and philosophy professor Ruy Carlos Ostermann, where personalities from the areas of culture or other segments are invited for live interviews, with the participation of the audience, leading the community to participate in discussions that usually take place in TV studios or other specific places of difficult access.

Actions:

• 15 meetings held in 2006, with the participation of guests such as movie director Jorge Furtado, writer Moacyr Scliar and singer Adriana Calcanhotto, and sculptor Xico Stockinger.
  
• Publication of the book Meetings with the Professor – Brazilian Culture in Interview, Volume I, with a total of 2,000 copies, reproducing interviews conducted during the year.

Location: Porto Alegre

Audience reached: average of 100 people in each meeting.

Flores da Cunha Institute of Education

Objective: investment in the project for restoration of the historical painting The Taking of the Azenha Bridge (measuring 5.46 x 3.76 meters), by Augusto Luiz de Freitas, dated from 1922.

Location: Porto Alegre

Direct audience reached: 3 thousand students, teachers and school employees.

Childhood and education

Our Schools Project

Objective: to provide financial, technical, and human resources for fulfilling infrastructure and qualification needs in six elementary public schools located in rural areas around the South Petrochemical Complex. Coordination of this Project is provided by a committee comprised by Copesul’s collaborators. The support is granted for up to five years, and may be renewed.

Location: cities of Canoas, Montenegro, Nova Santa Rita and Triunfo.

Participating schools: Public State School José Garibaldi, Public Municipal School Etelvino de Araújo Cruz, Public State School Adão Martini, Public Municipal School Osvaldo Aranha, Public Municipal School Treze de Maio, Public Municipal School Ramiz Galvão.

Direct audience reached: 1,200 students.

In a partnership with its collaborators, Copesul aims at attending infrastructure and qualification needs in six public schools close to the Company.

Other actions:

• Copesul made possible for the students of benefited schools to participate in the program of the following events, which were sponsored by the Company: 52nd Porto Alegre Book Fair, Quintana Exhibit Between the Day and the Night, Man-Nature Exhibit, Copesul Environmental Protection Park, and Copesul Environment Week.
  
• An agreement with the Rio Grande University Foundation (FURG) will allow for approximately 30 teachers from the benefited schools to receive training on how to utilize computers in the classroom, using the Schooner Project technology (developed with sponsorship by Copesul and the Development Bank - BNDES).

Fishing Project

Objective: operating since 2000, the Copesul-Fishing Unit provides trade teaching in Electronics and Services Assistant to teenagers between 16 and 19 years old from the community, in a total of 800 hours of training. The teaching technology is from the Fishing Project, an entity present in ten Brazilian states and in Argentina. A collaborators committee is directly involved with this Unit, which also has partnerships formed with local companies.

Location: Nova Santa Rita.

Audience reached: every year, 15 new students attend the course. From those students who graduated in the previous year, 99.33% were working in companies from the region in 2006.

House-Home Project

Since 1995, the House-Home Project provides home and family convivial to 32 minors who were at a condition of social risk and fragility.

Objective: to provide financial support to this initiative, responsible for providing support and safety in an adequate home, as well as family guidance to children and teenagers, from zero to 18 years old, who are in a social risk condition, either neglected or abandoned by their family and society. Attended to in tutored houses by surrogate parents or religious congregations, youngsters attend to school and trade courses, enjoy life in community and receive medical and psychological attending. This Project is maintained by Copesul since 1995.

Partnership: Porto Alegre City Hall

Location: Porto Alegre

Audience reached: 32 children and teenagers, in four different houses-homes.

Convivial to Learn Program

Objective: to contribute to the development of social technology and provide training activities to teachers, aiming at learning qualification and digital inclusion of students from the public educational system or who find themselves in a condition of social vulnerability. The first course, with a total duration of 180 hours, was initiated in October 2006, at the UFRGS Museum, and is scheduled to be concluded in May 2007. Copesul, which also donated 30 computers to this program, supports the initiative through the Children and Adolescent’s Rights Fund (Funcriança).

Partnership: Laboratory of Studies in Remote Education of the UFRGS Application School (Le@ad.CAp) and Funcriança.

Location: Porto Alegre

Audience reached: 80 educators and 3 thousand children and teenagers

Opening Horizons Project

Objective: encourage, through art, the development of potentialities and self-esteem of children and teenagers between 7 and 17 years old, who live in shelters or in the streets of downtown Porto Alegre, allowing for their progressive reintegration in the community, with a consequent increase in productivity and access to formal educational activities. Besides the convivial with educators and participation in workshops focused on drawing, painting, music, dance, theater, reading, movies, and photography, the participants take part in visitations and events in Porto Alegre.

Partnership: Mario Quintana Culture House

Location: Porto Alegre

Audience reached: average of 200 children and teenagers

Health-supporting initiatives

Santa Casa Hospital Complex

Objective: resources for recovery and technological updating of Santa Casa Hospital Complex, a bicentennial institution designed to provide healthcare to the population of Rio Grande do Sul State. During the years, many sectors of the Complex received contributions for remodeling and restructuring. In 2006, resources were forwarded to the Santo Antônio Children’s Hospital aimed at purchasing an Ecocardiograph, as well as the last instalment was forwarded from the total R$ 1 million donated for the recovery and technological update of Santa Clara General Hospital, the initial cell of Santa Casa de Misericórdia Brotherhood.

Location: Porto Alegre

Audience reached: the Santo Antônio Children’s Hospital provides an average of 191 thousand medical attendings between ambulatory appointments and admissions. In the Santa Clara Hospital, approximately 375 thousand medical attendings are provided every year.

Santa Casa Hospital of Porto Alegre: in 2006, Copesul donated equipment for the Santo Antônio Children’s Hospital and concluded the forwarding of R$ 1 million to Santa Clara General Hospital.

Diabetic Child Institute

Objective: supporting the work carried out in this institution, in order to benefit patients and family members, allowing for a better life quality and control of the disease. The Institute is a non-profit private entity that provides free medical attending and education for diabetic children and teenagers, together with their family members, through the Public Healthcare System, in order to help them deal with this disease.

Location: Porto Alegre

Audience reached: in 2006, the Institute provided 14,288 ambulatory attendings, 1,672 hospital attendings, and qualified 1,743 patients and family members in the course for education regarding diabetes.

Porto Alegre Emergency Hospital

Objective: to participate in the creation and management of the Pro-HPS Foundation, entity whose objective is to support the Porto Alegre Emergency Hospital, by occupying a seat in the Institution’s Curator Council. Copesul is one of the three companies that led the fundraising campaign for improvements and technological updating of the Hospital Burn Unit, which was opened in 2006, and will invest R$ 1 million in this project, starting in 2007.

Location: Porto Alegre

Audience reached: the Porto Alegre Emergency Hospital provides an average of 360 thousand emergency and urgency medical attendings every year, in 25 different medical fields.

	Since its creation in 1994, the Copesul Environmental Protection Park has consolidated the position as an environmental education center, recognized by the community. In 2006, the Park received 16,055 visitors.

Environmental initiatives

Copesul Environmental Protection Park

Objective: maintenance of an environmental protection park that is scientifically monitored and open to public visitation, located within the South Petrochemical Complex area, less than one kilometer away from the Company’s industrial facilities. Occupying a 68-hectare area by Caí River margins, the Copesul Environmental Protection Park has trails, viewpoints, trained monitors, activity rooms and a Natural Science Museum. Since its creation, the Park has been consolidating its position as an important mechanism for environmental education, especially for the region’s population. The Rio Grande do Sul State Zoobotanical Foundation (FZB), Copesul’s partner in the implementation of the Park and responsible for its monitoring, has already identified 2,504 different species in its area, four of them new species for science (two insects and two spiders). In 2006, Park biologists identified the occurrence of a new bird, the black-crowned tityra (Tityra inquisitor). Furthermore, part of the local biodiversity was recorded in a book published by the National Sciences Museum of Rio Grande do Sul Zoobotanical Foundation. The work “Cerambycidae (Coleóptera) of Copesul Environmental Protection Park, Triunfo, Rio Grande do Sul”, compiled by entomologists of Zoology Museum of São Paulo University, describe 89 cerambycidae species (types of insects) collected in the Park since 1987.

Location: Triunfo.

Audience reached: 16,055 visitors in 2006, comprised by environmentalists, students and general public.

Since the beginning of the scientific researches carried out by Rio Grande do Sul State Zoobotanical Foundation, a total of 2,504 fauna and flora species have already been recorded in the Copesul Environmental Protection Park.

Water – Life Element Project

Objective: forwarding of resources for the conduction of an environmental education project of the Petrochemical Complex Consultive Community Council in public municipal schools surrounding the Complex. By means of many actions, the project raised students’ awareness regarding the need to preserve the region’s water resources.

Partnership: South Petrochemical Complex Consultive Community Council

Location: South Petrochemical Complex neighboring cities (Triunfo, Montenegro and Nova Santa Rita).

Audience reached: 895 students from 17 schools.

Support to communities

Fios do Sul Program

Objective: to contribute to the social insertion of the rural population in the Southern Half of Rio Grande do Sul State, especially women, through the valorization of crafts with pure sheep wool and generation of income opportunities. In 2006, aiming at the evolution of this initiative to a sustained social-economical development initiative, Copesul defined its support to a project, in early stages of implementation, whose directives are aligned with the Fios do Sul Program.

Actions:

• Purchase of 1,500 handmade blankets for donation to the Rio Grande do Sul State Warm Clothing Campaign, which stimulated the search for improvements by artisans and allowed for extra income for those artisans that participate in three production cooperatives.
  
• Conduction of the 2nd Rio Grande do Sul Wool Exhibit, as part of the 2006 Expointer Fair program, one of the largest agribusiness fairs in Brazil. For approximately 15 days, artisans from all over the State had at their disposal a space for display and sale of products made out of pure wool, with no costs, and with required facilities to value and trade their production.

Partnership: artisan’s cooperatives and sheep breeding entities

Location: Southern Half of Rio Grande do Sul State

Audience directly reached: 140 artisans in the Rio Grande do Sul Wool Craft Exhibit, and 60 artisans who supplied blankets for the Warm Clothing Campaign.

The support to the production of pure wool crafts by the Fios do Sul Program benefits approximately 200 artisans, mostly women, who live in the Southern half of Rio Grande do Sul State.

Spirulina Project

Objective: to contribute to the researches related to nutritional properties of spirulina microalga, aiming at the implementation of a center for richened food production. Micro-alga spirulina develops in the region’s lagoons, and its use for avoiding childhood malnutrition is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). After dehydrated, this alga can be incorporated in the production of chocolate, flours, cakes and other types of highly-nutritive food. The pilot-plant for the production of spirulina, which is under Copesul’s responsibility, is located in the city of Santa Vitória do Palmar, and has the capabilities to produce 50 kg of dry alga every month.

Partnership: Rio Grande City Hall, Rio Grande University Foundation, Zeri Foundation and Ipiranga Refinery.

Location: cities of Rio Grande, Santa Vitória do Palmar and São José do Norte

Audience reached: approximately 2 thousand students in the public school system

Copesul Program for Digital Inclusion

Objective: donation of 22 computers, 10 printers, and software licenses for community entities, such as schools, police stations, hospitals, and Military Police, among others. Equipment in excellent condition were donated, which were not being used at Copesul.

Location: Cities surrounding the South Petrochemical Complex (Triunfo, Montenegro and Nova Santa Rita).

Volunteering

Many Copesul’s collaborators are involved in actions that contribute to the improvement of life quality of people who are attended by social institutions.

Actions:

• Affection During All Year – A group comprised by 11 collaborators and partner employees, with resources forwarded by Copesul through the Funcriança Fund, supported the implementation of a headquarter and furniture purchasing for the Angels of Light Association, in a lot donated by Montenegro City Hall, aiming at the development of formal education complementary activities for the children of this community.
  
• Solidarity Campaigns of the Copesul Program for the Development of Talents – In 2006, Copesul’s trainees gathered approximately 650 toys and books, in addition to 1,615 coats, which were donated to assistance entities.

Location: cities of Montenegro, Canoas and São Leopoldo

Audience reached: initial expectation of 50 children in the Angels of Light Association and approximately 250 children and elderly people in the solidarity campaigns carried out by trainees.