Madalena Duarte

Madalena Duarte lives in Itaúna, Brazil. She has been a waste picker for 40 years. She has worked at COOPERT (Cooperativa de Reciclagem dos Recicladores da Rede de Economia Solidária) for 13 years. She has also worked for 7 years at Cataunidos, the first waste picker-run plastic factory in Latin America. She is a national coordinator for the National Brazilian Movement of Waste Pickers (MNCR). She served for two years in the operations secretariat of the Latin American Network (Red Lacre) and today is a delegate of that network.

Duarte says that the global workshop in Pune is important because “we can establish relationships with other people, share our visions, and take action collectively.”

“We are creating models of how to work with society,” she said.