Standing Up for Women in Borba: Go Balance’s Partnership with the Special Women’s Office
How Go Balance’s Trocano REDD+ Project goes beyond forest protection to champion women’s safety and empowerment in Amazonas, Brazil
June 2026 | Go Balance | Trocano Araretama REDD+ Project
When people think of REDD+ carbon projects, they think of trees — of satellite maps, deforestation rates, and carbon stocks carefully measured and verified. And yes, protecting the Amazon forest is at the heart of what we do at Go Balance. But forest protection does not happen in a vacuum. It happens within communities, within families, within the social fabric of the people who live alongside and depend upon the forest. That is why, since 2011, the Trocano Araretama Project has always placed community wellbeing at the centre of its work in the municipality of Borba, Amazonas.
This year, we took a significant new step. Go Balance contracted Mariza Graças Guedes — one of our independent consultants and a leading figure in Borba’s civic life — to work on permanent allocation with the Special Women’s Defender’s Office (Procuradoria Especial da Mulher de Borba ) of the Borba Municipal Chamber. The partnership represents something we are genuinely proud of: a REDD+ project reaching beyond forest management to actively support the women of the communities we serve.
Here is the story of the first five months.
Building Something New: REDD+ Social Co-Benefits Take Shape in Borba
The Special Women’s Defender’s Office was inaugurated in August 2025 — a relatively new institution in Borba, but one that has moved quickly to make its presence felt. From the outset, the Office operated with a social work professional on the team and a clear mandate: to listen, to receive, to support, and to refer women facing violence, vulnerability, and rights violations.
By early 2026, the Office had already assisted 49 people since opening — women and men presenting with a wide range of needs. Of these, 21 were formally referred to other bodies in the municipal and state protection network, including the Civil Police, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Public Defender’s Office, and the Social Assistance Department (CRAS and CREAS). Five cases involved domestic violence, three involved psychological violence, ten involved social and economic vulnerability, and one involved gender-based political violence — a reminder of how many different forms harm can take.
In February 2026, the team was expanded to ensure more comprehensive and timely support for the women of Borba. The Office was growing, and the need was clear.
Laying the Groundwork for Community Protection – REDD+ Community Benefits
The first two months of 2026 were, above all, about building the network. Mariza and the team held a series of meetings with every key institution in the municipal protection ecosystem: the Civil Police, the Secretariat for Public Policies for Women, the CAPS mental health team and Women’s Coordination Office within the Health Department, the CREAS social assistance team, the Municipal Guard, and the Public Security Department.
This kind of relationship-building might seem administrative, but it is foundational. When a woman in crisis walks through the Office’s door, what happens next depends entirely on the quality of the connections already in place — whether a call to the health service will be answered, whether a referral to the police will be acted upon. The January and February meetings were investments in those moments of urgency.
February also saw the launch of the 21 Days of Activism to End Violence Against Women campaign, with an opening livestream and planning sessions drawing together institutions from across the municipality. It was a visible public statement of intent.
Women’s Empowerment Education Reaches Borba’s Schools
If January and February were about institutional coordination, March was about going directly to the next generation.On 11 March, International Women’s Day was marked with an event at the Chamber itself. But the most significant work of the month happened in Borba’s schools. On 13 March, the team delivered two lectures: one at ETTI School on the prevention of violence against women, and another at Lothar Sussman School on women in politics and women’s empowerment.
These were not tick-box exercises — they were substantive conversations with young people about what healthy relationships look like and why women’s voices matter in public life.
The month continued with two sessions of the Generation of Respect Project, bringing education on healthy relationships to students at Dr Auzier Moreira Municipal School and Alcides Brandão de Sá Municipal School. The project’s name says it well: the goal is to shape a culture of respect before patterns of harm take hold. March closed with an alignment meeting alongside the State Internal Affairs Office and the Public Prosecutor’s Office — another piece of the coordination puzzle clicking into place.
Self-Defence, Awards, and Community Outreach in the Amazon
April was perhaps the most action-packed month of the period. The headline initiative was a self-defence course for women, delivered by Jiu-Jitsu black belt Master Jander Silva and organised in partnership with municipal and state authorities. By the end of the course, a group of women in Borba had gained practical skills to protect themselves — and had done so in a setting that also included presentations on reporting channels and access to social and psychological support.
The course brought together a remarkable coalition: Sports Secretary Fábio Júnior, Social Worker Emília Thiago, Chamber President Tatiana Franco, Government Secretary Bento Santana, and other municipal representatives all showed up to support the initiative. Mariza delivered a speech reinforcing the importance of self-defence for women and the support services available to victims. It was community mobilisation at its most tangible.
April also brought recognition on a larger stage. The Women’s Defender’s Office of Borba was awarded third place in the Câmara Cidadã project — a state-wide initiative recognising transparency and active citizenship — with the award received in Manaus by Chamber President Tatiana Franco. It was a meaningful acknowledgement that what is being built in Borba is noticed and valued beyond the municipality’s borders.
Alongside these headline events, the team maintained its core work: scheduled visits to recent victims who felt threatened or had experienced violence; awareness-raising talks across the community; and provision of psychological and social support. April also saw initial planning begin for actions during the June Festival — Borba’s annual celebration during which the population triples and, with it, the risk of incidents rises sharply.
Extending REDD+ Community Benefits to Canumã
May’s defining action was a journey beyond Borba’s urban centre. The team travelled to the district of Canumã — a more remote part of the municipality — to bring awareness and essential information to women and the wider population there. Present alongside Mariza and Social Worker Emília Thiago was Chamber President Tatiana Franco, and the visit was also attended by former Governor of Amazonas, Wilson Lima — a signal of the initiative’s growing reach and profile.
The visit reinforced reporting channels, explained what steps to take in cases of violence, and connected residents with social and psychological support services. For women in more isolated communities, this kind of direct outreach can be the difference between knowing their rights and not. It is the kind of work that rarely appears in a carbon project audit, but that matters enormously to the people it reaches.
The month also continued the steady rhythm of victim support visits, awareness-raising, and emergency service coordination that has become the Office’s operational backbone.
The Human Side of High-Integrity REDD+
High-integrity REDD+ projects must be technically robust — requiring credible monitoring, conservative risk-based carbon accounting, independent verification, and long-term project governance. But technical rigour alone is not enough. A project must also be locally meaningful.
The local communities and institutions of Borba should be able to see and understand how the Trocano Araretama Project contributes beyond carbon. That contribution takes different forms over time — environmental education, fire prevention, sustainable livelihoods, community events, training, social support, and institutional partnerships. Supporting the Special Women’s Defender’s Office is part of that broader picture.
It demonstrates how the project can strengthen local services that are already working to improve people’s lives, and how REDD+ can be implemented in a way that genuinely respects the wider priorities of the municipality.
Why Gender Equality is a Core Social Co-Benefit Within a REDD+ Project
The Trocano Araretama Project operates across a vast territory in the municipality of Borba, working with local communities who depend on the Amazon ecosystem for their lives and livelihoods. The women of these communities are not passive beneficiaries of carbon finance — they are active participants in, and guardians of, the forest itself.
But women can only play that role fully when they are safe, when their rights are respected, and when the social structures around them support rather than undermine them. Gender-based violence, economic vulnerability, and exclusion from public life are not separate issues from forest conservation — they are part of the same picture of community resilience and social sustainability.
REDD+ projects certified under the Natural Forest Standard are expected to deliver social co-benefits alongside carbon outcomes. Go Balance has always taken that responsibility seriously. Our partnership with the Special Women’s Defender’s Office of Borba is one expression of that commitment — direct, practical, and grounded in the realities of the community.
Looking Ahead: Sustaining Social Impact in the Amazon
The first five months of this partnership have laid a strong foundation. The Office is connected to the protection network, has built credibility with municipal institutions, has reached hundreds of people through awareness campaigns and school programmes, and has begun extending its work into more remote parts of the municipality. Mariza and her colleagues have done extraordinary work.
Looking ahead, the team is already planning for the June Festival — a period of heightened risk that calls for proactive presence and coordination. We will continue to report on this work and to share what we are learning.
At Go Balance, we believe that protecting the Amazon and protecting the people who call it home are not separate missions. They are one.
The Trocano Araretama REDD+ Project has been operational since 2011 in the municipality of Borba, Amazonas, Brazil. Go Balance is the project developer. For more information about the project and our community initiatives, please visit the Trocano Project website or contact us directly.
Further Reading:
Readers interested in the wider structure of the Trocano Project REDD+ can also explore our resources on Jurisdictional REDD+ Projects, Governance in Long-Term REDD+ Projects, Risk-Based Carbon Accounting, and the Trocano Project REDD+ Brazil Institutional Overview within the Go Balance Knowledge Hub.