ReCivitas Institute [on] revitalization of citizenship and is one universal basic

income project completely independent [of] the government and companies. It is

funded by money donated [from] people

from the entire world [who] give directly [to] the hands of the people living - about a thousand

persons living in this small community called Quatinga Velho, and these

persons receive by month 30 reals - it's something like 10 or 15 euros - [at] the beginning of the

project. Now the project is over. In 2015, the project ended. And in this period, we had a

couple of studies - academic studies - to see what happens when the people

receive their transformations, not only in the economic way but in the human

development approach of this project, and the people have a great increase [in]

the economic life; the participation in the political increased too. And on the other hand,

the contact, the human contact, the social capital

had a great increase. In a very simple way, I must define universal basic

income for one special, even small, community. It's when basic income is given to other persons without

asking [anything] to [be done], not only in the economic way but in the political way.

These people received this money just to live because [they are] human beings.

This is the definition to use in this project, and it's very connected to the

universal basic income definition. And in the project, to manage that, we applied one special model - when the

people define who belongs to the community, called the direct democracy model, to

help us manage that without creating discrimination between the persons living

there. It is one important thing in this local model of basic income. The most important thing about the basic income when they created this model is it's

possible, truly possible, paying [a] basic income - a jumped from this part of the

theoretical thing [to] create practical models of the basic income, not to

only prove basic income is a good political policy but is a very

new form of social contract. On the other hand, when the project is over -

maybe this is the most important lesson for other experimental projects

created - is it's very important to look for basic income not only [in an] unconditional

way but the guarantee that people must know every day

he will receive this basic income, know the future is guaranteed. It's very important. Basic income

must be connected [to] this safety of your freedom. It's is very important. Not only the

focus on the poverty, [but] the focus on the people [who] have the right to project your own

future. This, I believe, is the most important lesson I learned from Quatinga Velho.