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Social Responsibility
Top: Students at Hotel Bela Vista learn to handle table utensils.
Bottom: Hotel facade
Throughout its history, CSN has always adopted socially responsible policies, with an extensive outreach into its surrounding communities. These projects, now concentrated in the CSN Foundation, strengthen ties with the population and underline the Company’s commitment to Brazil’s social and economic development.
These initiatives cover such areas as education, health, culture and sports. In 2008, the Company invested R$ 24.6 million in social and cultural projects, 56% more than the R$ 16 million spent in 2007, and 92% more than the 2006 figure of R$ 13 million, benefiting more than 500,000 people in ten Brazilian States, always in partnership with rigorously selected institutions.
CSN uses tax benefits to sponsor social assistance projects, cultural events and renowned institutions, including the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (MAM); the Congonhas Museum (Center for Baroque and Stonework Studies); the construction of the Brasiliana Guita and José Mindlin Library, at the University of São Paulo (USP); the Paraty Literature Festival; the São Paulo Symphonic Jazz Orchestra; the Israel Symphony Orchestra; the Young Bach Orchestra; and the “Ramon and Maraó” musical spectacular with the Palavra Cantada group.
The Company has also sponsored Brazilian films, including Terra Vermelha (Birdwatchers), which was chosen to open the São Paulo International Film Festival and which was one of the highlights at last year’s Venice Film Festival, and Paraísos Artificiais, currently in production and untitled in English as yet.
In the social area, CSN supports several NGOs inscribed in the Children and Teenagers’ Funds of various Brazilian municipalities. The main focus is on physically or mentally challenged children and youngsters, as well as victims of domestic violence or sexual exploitation. The institutions we have supported include the Association for Children with Special Needs (Associação de Assistência à Criança Deficiente - AACD), the Center for the Defense of Children’s and Teenagers’ Rights (Centro de Defesa dos Direitos da Criança e do Adolescente - Cedeca) in the Interlagos district of São Paulo, and the Association of Parents and Friends of the Children with Special Needs (Associação de Pais e Amigos dos Excepcionais - APAE) in São Paulo.
The CSN Foundation’s main social responsibility programs are shown below:
Professional Training
Technical Schools - Top
The number of children and teenagers benefiting from the Garoto Cidadão project has risen to 845
The Pandiá Calógeras Technical School (ETPC), in Volta Redonda (RJ), offers courses in electromechanics, metal mechanics, electronics, telecommunications, information technology, telematics and administration, in order to prepare students for the job market and also for the university entrance exam. In 2008, it had 1,146 students, 275 of whom on full grants and 115 on partial grants.
The General Edmundo Macedo Soares e Silva Technological Education Centre (CET), located in Congonhas (MG), offers courses in mining, electromechanics, work safety, metallurgy and administration, with a focus on technical skills training, thereby helping to supply qualified professionals for companies in the Alto Paraopeba region. The CET has entered into three important agreements with the State Secretariat for Social Development (Sedese) and VSB Tubos Sumitomo which will generate a further 498 places for the mechanics and metallurgy courses.
Hotel School - Top
The Bela Vista Hotel School, in Volta Redonda, offers training in hotel and catering services for young adults aged between 18 and 25. The course, which lasts for six months, includes modules on governance, reception, kitchen practices, events, preventive maintenance, career guidance, waiting, hygiene and food handling, entrepreneurship, information technology and customer service, as well as a simulation workshop.
Every six months, 80 young people are invited to take part in the course following a selection process. The project enjoys an excellent reputation in the south of Rio de Janeiro state and most graduates are employed by hotels, restaurants and catering companies.
Social and Cultural Projects
Garoto Cidadão Project - Top
The Garoto Cidadão (Child Citizen) project, implemented in 1999, is aimed primarily at children and teenagers aged between 6 and 16 enrolled in the public school system who are deemed to be in situations of social risk.
Children taking part in the Garoto Cidadão project
The idea is to encourage the social, educational and emotional development of the participants, helping to create informed, well-rounded and critically-aware citizens. The project offers cultural activities, extra tuition and access to information technology. Digital inclusion allows youngsters to enter the information culture, with the possibility of producing and spreading knowledge
Thanks to optimization of the resources involved, without any loss of service quality, the monthly per capita cost of the project fell by 22%, from R$ 221.47 in 2007 to R$ 172.78 in 2008, while the number of participants jumped from 121 to 845 in the same period.
In 2008, the project benefited youngsters from Volta Redonda, Congonhas, Itaguaí, Araucária and Arcos, all cities where CSN maintains productive units.
Top: A theater production within the Truck for Ziraldo project.
Bottom: Poster for the CSN Cultural Center
Um Caminhão para Ziraldo (A Truck for Ziraldo) - Top
Taking culture to the most diverse regions of Brazil – this is the aim of the Truck for Ziraldo project. A specially adapted truck takes a selection of the work of author and cartoonist Ziraldo, creator of Menino Maluquinho, a popular cartoon character, throughout the country.
The presentations are designed to encourage artistic expression and the habit of reading and writing, as well as raising awareness of the Children and Teenagers’ Statute and explaining the basic concepts of citizenship.
In 2008, the truck visited 11 Brazilian states and the Federal District, taking entertainment and culture to 150,000 people.
CSN Foundation Cultural Centre - Top
The CSN Foundation Cultural Center, in Volta Redonda, holds a series of seminars, workshops, lectures, exhibitions, recitals and concerts, among other events, aiming to increase community access to the arts and achieve social transformation through culture.
The Center also organizes the regular “Cultural Tuesday” project, where the auditorium is thrown open to local artists so they can present theatrical, artistic and musical events. In 2008, more than 6,000 visitors watched the presentations.
The Art Gallery project is geared towards contemporary artists, while artistic debate is encouraged through exhibitions, community workshops and seminars.
CSN Foundation Experimental Orchestra - Top
Based at the Cultural Center, the Young Symphony Orchestra and Experimental Orchestra project comprises 57 musicians, all of whom youngsters living in situations of social risk that have passed through a rigorous selection process.
The Experimental Symphony Orchestra
Participants are trained in orchestral music, choral singing, vocal techniques, musical theory and perception, and the history of music.
Five major concerts were held in 2008, with an estimated total audience of around 20,000. This year also saw the initiation of the musical structuring project, designed to promote orchestral excellence.
Top: Children’s ballet class in one of the community workshops.
Bottom: The CSN Foundation radio studio
Community Workshops - Top
Community workshops are held by producers and artists, including musicians, actors, painters and dancers, enabling children, teenagers and adults from low-income families, including those with special needs, to gain access to cultural activities in such areas as music, theater and the visual arts. In 2008, the workshops catered to more than 1,300 people.
Fonoteca (Sound Library) - Top
The CSN Foundation is committed to nurturing culture in all its different aspects and maintains a valuable archive of recorded material, with more than 16,000 33 and 78 rpm records and 3,000 musical scores, inherited from the former radio station Rádio Siderúrgica Nacional, in Volta Redonda. The collection, duly restored and digitalized, is now available to the community for leisure, research and the preservation of radio memorabilia. The project also includes an on-line radio station at www.radiofundacaocsn.org, to ensure even wider access to this invaluable material.
Social and Sporting Projects
Sports and Citizenship - Top
The Recreio do Trabalhador is a 44,000 m2 sports and leisure complex with a multi-sport gym, an aquatic complex with three swimming pools, facilities for a wide variety of outdoor sports and an exercise gym. It also offers sports courses to several age groups, including swimming, basketball, futsal and judo, as well as Brazilian capoeira, tai chi chuan and special programs for senior citizens.
Swimming lessons at the Recreio do Trabalhador
The Recreio also runs two sporting social projects: the Badminton Nucleus and the Viva Vôlei, dedicated to badminton and volleyball respectively. In 2008, these projects celebrated their fifth anniversary, having benefited 750 children and teenagers from public schools in the Médio Paraíba region. Since project participants are living in situations of social risk, the CSN Foundation provides transport vouchers and a uniform to ensure attendance.
Oral Hygiene - Top
Children participating in the Rindo à Toa project
The Rindo à Toa (Laughing Out Loud) initiative is aimed at children up to grade five attending municipal public schools.
Focused on prevention, this project encourages children (and teachers) to give due importance to oral hygiene. In 2008, it attended 10,000 children in Arcos, Congonhas and São Brás do Suaçaí, in Minas Gerais, and also visited institutions in the countryside of Rio de Janeiro state.