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Dear friends,

This newsletter provides a sneak peak at what we have in store for our users - community leaders around the world - in the coming months! As one of CatComm's supporters, fans, and friends, you have the opportunity to see what lies in store! Thank you for being one of the critical people that's made our work grow in 2006.

Community Solutions  Art for a Better Society, Skopje, Macedonia Welcome, Macedonia! The first project published to our Community Solutions Database from Macedonia, Art for a Better Society is based in Skopje. Over 8 years, NGO Art Studio has shown that arts programs can have a real impact on youth. Their motto: "develop the community connection to make youth more conscious of their future and how they can shape it" demonstrates the Art Studio´s focus on enthusiasm and good will, in addition to its base in art, tradition, peace, tolerance, philanthropy, knowledge and education of young people to create a better society. 300 members have now been educated in the field of fine arts, 50 of whom are now enrolled at Universities around the world. A hearty *welcome!* is also in store for our other recent projects, all of which you can visualize here in our new project design: Information Technology Club , Porto Alegre, Brazil Campaign to Save Our Schools , Washington, DC, USA Cirlanda, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Community in Action: Reducing the Resistance to Contraceptives , Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Peace Building and Good Governance in Sudan, Khartoum, Sudan Check out our database, now with over 125 community projects from 9 countries! Be inspired! Get involved! View our new project design and learn more about Art in Macedonia....

Major Site Renovations  Questionnaire, homepage and more! In the past weeks we've launched a highly improved questionnaire design to facilitate project documentation to the Community Solutions Database. A long and difficult documentation process, that was tedious for many communities, has been transformed into a 14-step, easy-to-follow questionnaire design that allows community groups to post little by little. Several new projects have been posted as a result. Next up: a new homepage and simplified, "clean" site design! We'll keep you posted! Test the new questionnaire, document a community solution here...

Casa Corner  What's going on in and around the Casa? Our model community networking hub in Rio de Janeiro, the Casa is running at full steam! After a setback early in the year with the theft of a few computers, a local businessman's donation allowed us to restock and move forward. In this period, we've seen a doubling of city neighborhoods supported! At the Casa, local leaders from the city’s squatter areas network and share their projects, ideas, contacts, experiences, and expertise. Here they host workshops for one another, connect each other to funders and volunteers, and exchange vital skills. Over 950 local leaders from 150 of the city’s communities (around 20% of the city’s neighborhoods) have used the space since inception. All outreach has been by word- of-mouth. In the past months we've welcomed students from the Denver-based Odyssey Institute, the International Honors Program, workshops in jewelry-making and fundraising, and lectures on volunteerism in Africa and youth organizing. In the meantime, we are getting ready to move to a larger location to meet growing demand. Follow weekly happenings around the Casa through the Casa Blog...

About CatComm  CatComm on National Brazilian Radio On August 8, André Urani, a new commentator on Brazil's national public radio (Rádio CBN), in his program called "Mais Rio" (More Rio), highlighted Catalytic Communities! André is Executive Director of IETS (Institute for the Study of Labor and Society) in Rio, an economist and ex-Secretary of Labor for the City of Rio. His piece, featured as an interview in the morning and as a monologue in the afternoon, attracted a large number of new visitors to CatComm's site, from across the country. To listen to his morning interview (10:35 am) click here (Portuguese only). To listen to his afternoon monologue (5:10 pm) click here (Portuguese only). Here's a translation of what André shared: Whoever said solutions can only come from above? It's because of her belief that things don't have to be that way that Theresa Williamson... packed up and moved here to Rio de Janeiro, in 2000. She was completing her doctorate in city planning at the University of Pennsylvania and became fascinated by an experience that was being born here in Rio: that of a network of community managers of social programs... Theresa decided to bet on this idea, setting up an NGO, called Catalytic Communities, or CATCOMM, to multiply the potential of these capacity-building initiatives. CATCOMM has a double objective. On the one hand, the organization offers, online and in three languages (Portuguese, English and Spanish) a Community Solutions Database; on the other, they run a model technology center, the " Casa do Gestor Catalisador," in Rio's downtown, that serves as a space for exchanges among local leaders. The Community Solutions Database is visited by more than 20,000 people a month. Today it features 118 projects from 8 countries. In addition to Brazil, the range of countries includes the United States, Canada, Nigeria, Togo, Sudan, India and Israel. Motive of pride for all of us is that 80% of these projects are right here in Rio de Janeiro. And not only from the 4 corners of the Capital, but from various municipalities in the Metropolitan Region, like Itaguái, Mesquita and Maricá. The themes are diverse: from community radio to recycling, adult literacy to odontology. This proves that there are lots of people getting mobilized, pulling up their sleeves, coming up with ideas to escape the hole they're in, without waiting for our politicians to resolve things. The site's address is simple: www.comcat.org (Portuguese). The Casa, in turn, has already received, since it was launched, visits from some 1000 community leaders, coming from 159 city neighborhoods, 7 municipalities across the state, 19 Brazilian states and 19 other nations. It is located at Beco João José #7, in Saúde, near Praça Mauá in Rio. But that's not all: Theresa's work is supported by a vast network of volunteers. With this, in addition to being charismatic and efficient, this work is very inexpensive. The NGO's annual budget doesn't surpass R$200,000 per year (~US$100,000). Read the full transcript...