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Number of employeeS

18

Year of Registration

2000

Number of Followers

1

Annual income

US$ 367,164

Category of SGO

Non-profit

Country

Brazil

Founder and CEO
thedotgood's take
What's so special with that SGO.
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With Grace and Extreme Attention, Winning the Point With the Youth

How to turn tennis into a winning social good asset? With WimBelemDon, Marcelo Ruschel da Costa has pushed the boundaries of his favorite sport. His school of thought comes down to fostering agents of social change, each player has their own capacity and potential, but with a common set of good values. As a professional photographer traveling the world with tennis champions, he realized what he could do to deliver the positive in each and every one. He is now an accomplished social entrepreneur in an underprivileged region of Brazil.

WimBelemDon is using tennis as a starter, taking children and youth towards other extracurricular activities such as storytelling, literacy, learning labs, and more, helping participants to develop skills and attitudes that will benefit them in their personal and professional...

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With Grace and Extreme Attention, Winning the Point With the Youth

How to turn tennis into a winning social good asset? With WimBelemDon, Marcelo Ruschel da Costa has pushed the boundaries of his favorite sport. His school of thought comes down to fostering agents of social change, each player has their own capacity and potential, but with a common set of good values. As a professional photographer traveling the world with tennis champions, he realized what he could do to deliver the positive in each and every one. He is now an accomplished social entrepreneur in an underprivileged region of Brazil.

WimBelemDon is using tennis as a starter, taking children and youth towards other extracurricular activities such as storytelling, literacy, learning labs, and more, helping participants to develop skills and attitudes that will benefit them in their personal and professional life, all within their reach of influence. WimBelemDon doesn’t necessarily have large numbers to show, though it is already huge in Brazil. Its success story and experience as a social good organization is creating a lasting echo through conferences and lectures in Brazil, and the international tennis world.

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Mission statement
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To promote social transformation for vulnerable children and teenagers through the practice of tennis and cultural, pedagogical and socio-emotional activities, adopting a human outlook that respects the limits and activates the potential of each pupil, encouraging them to be autonomous, spreading good values and inspiring the communities around them.
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To promote social transformation for vulnerable children and teenagers through the practice of tennis and cultural, pedagogical and socio-emotional activities, adopting a human outlook that respects the limits and activates the potential of each pupil, encouraging them to be autonomous, spreading good values and inspiring the communities around them.
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Impact

LATEST ANNUAL INCOME
US$ 367,164
Previous Annual Income
US$ 342,438
Latest Surplus/Deficit
(US$ 213,.028)
Latest Net Assets
US$ 125,502
Name of Auditing Firm

AudiLink & Co. Auditors

LATEST FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
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COUNTRY (OR COUNTRIES) WHERE ACTIVE
Brazil
Latest ANNUAL REPORT
TAX YEAR END
Unknown

Governance

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Founder and CEO
Marcelo Ruschel da Costa
SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Marcelo Ruschel was a restless and very active child … He always repeats a phrase he heard from his grandfather, who raised him: “You don’t have to be the best, just do your best in everything you do”. He started working early, as an office boy in an uncle’s company. At the age of 18 he started working on a big oil company as an administrative assistant. At the age of 20 he decided to quit his job at Ipiranga and the university studies in law at PUC-RS to dedicate himself to a passion: photography. In photography, always as a free lancer, he sought to work in the areas he most liked. Architecture, Environment, Music and Sport were present in its 31 years of successful career. Within these areas, sports was the one that most marked his professional life. He was an official photographer for several international sporting events, such as several editions of the World Championship of Beach Volleyball, Beach Soccer and tennis, among others. But it was in tennis that Marcelo gained international renown. In the international competition that most involves countries in the world, the Davis Cup of tennis, Marcelo accompanied the Brazilian tennis team in several countries. And, hired by the ITF-International Tennis Federation, he was the official photographer for dozens of Davis Cup clashes. Between 2000 and 2002, he followed the peak of Gustavo “Guga” Kuerten’s career, hired by one of the tennis player’s biggest sponsors, recording moments inside and outside the courts in the biggest tennis tournaments in the world. But it was in the area of ​​environmental photography that Marcelo awoke to social entrepreneurship. He decided to do a photo essay on sea lions, on Ilha dos Lobos, the smallest ecological reserve in Brazil. There, he faced a sad situation. In winter, fishermen killed these mammals to avoid competition for fish, the main food, contributing to the extinction and deterioration of animals and the reserve. What was supposed to be just a photographic exhibition, gave him inspiration to take the project to other cities and capitals, carrying out a petition, requesting greater protection from the public spheres in the preservation of the ecological reserve. Upon realizing the impact of this solitary and unpretentious action, he realized that he could do more for society. In another work in the same area, he was a volunteer photographer for a preservation project for the Southern Right Whale, the second most endangered species of whale on the planet. In this work, in addition to several photographic exhibitions throughout Brazil, he gave lectures to more than 2,500 young people from public schools in the municipality of Imbituba / SC. Marcelo really enjoyed the work of environmental education and, at this point, the social entrepreneur was almost ready. Joining his experience in the sport, he decided, without any knowledge in the third sector, to create a social project in an underprivileged region, aiming at the improvement of the community and its residents. From an abandoned tennis court, he created, together with his wife in October 2000, the WimBelemDon Project. Marcelo considers 2008/2009 the frontier between amateurism and the professionalism of his social initiative. Due to the 2008 global economic crisis, the project almost had to end its activities. And to make matters worse, the only maintainer (Copesul – Rio Grande do Sul petrochemical company, sold to Braskem) announced his departure due to the change of command. At this moment, Marcelo and Luciane realized the children’s sadness and how they understood WimBelemDon as a great opportunity in their lives. They agreed that if the Project survived that bad moment, they would do everything to train themselves in the third sector. And that’s what happened. In a pilot project by the BID – “Inter-American Development Bank”, the organization was accepted into a course called “Principles of Accountability and Transparency (PCT) for NGOs” and carried out by the NGO Parceiros Voluntários from Rio Grande do Sul. 76 NGOs from Rio Grande do Sul were trained , in 18 months and the result of the work turned into a book written by Maria Elena Johannpeter, called “NGO – Transparency and Accountability as a critical success factor”, where, of the 12 chapters, one of them told the success story of WimBelemDon. From this experience, WimBelemDon has not stopped professionalizing, and as a result it had several regional, national and international recognitions and awards. Marcelo started to give several lectures, the biggest one to TEDx-Laçador (2015) and to participate in several courses, seminars and workshops on the third sector. Since the founding of WimBelemDon, Marcelo’s passion for photography has gradually been overwhelmed by his passion for the Third Sector and his pleasure in promoting Social Transformation. He ended his career as a photojournalist in March 2014 to dedicate himself exclusively to WimBelemDon. Marcelo always considered himself a dreamer and always chased his dreams and this reflected in the NGO’s own vision: “May every child have a dream and the ability to seek it, creating a fair and self-sustaining society “.
Has Held position since
2022
Board Gender balance
3M - 2F
Number of Employees
18
Number of Volunteers
19

History

It all started on October 31, 2000, when photographer Marcelo Ruschel rented an abandoned tennis court in Belém Novo, a neighborhood in the south of Porto Alegre where he lives, to develop a social project with the children of the neighborhood. The name is a pun and tribute to the Wimbledon Tournament in London.

Tennis is the main focus in attracting and retaining the children and adolescents served, interconnected socio-emotional, pedagogical, and cultural workshops, such as cinema, arts, learning laboratory, literacy, and psychology groups, promoting individual and social transformations. In addition to these activities, our students receive a snack and lunch daily.
Each one of these personal attributes – love, altruism, self-acceptance, empathy, generosity, kindness, gratitude, honesty, humility, forgiveness, perseverance, respect, and tolerance – is important for the pupils and becomes largely influential in their journey to self-discovery and...

Read more

It all started on October 31, 2000, when photographer Marcelo Ruschel rented an abandoned tennis court in Belém Novo, a neighborhood in the south of Porto Alegre where he lives, to develop a social project with the children of the neighborhood. The name is a pun and tribute to the Wimbledon Tournament in London.

Tennis is the main focus in attracting and retaining the children and adolescents served, interconnected socio-emotional, pedagogical, and cultural workshops, such as cinema, arts, learning laboratory, literacy, and psychology groups, promoting individual and social transformations. In addition to these activities, our students receive a snack and lunch daily.
Each one of these personal attributes – love, altruism, self-acceptance, empathy, generosity, kindness, gratitude, honesty, humility, forgiveness, perseverance, respect, and tolerance – is important for the pupils and becomes largely influential in their journey to self-discovery and their relationship with their peers and the wider society.

In its more than twenty years of history, WimBelemDon has been the scene of countless cases of social transformation in the more than 1,000 children and adolescents attended. These are stories that involve improving school performance, entering university, the labor market, and, mainly, improving family relationships.

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Legal Status
Brazil
Year of registration
2000
BYLAWS PUBLICLY AVAILABLE
Yes
BYLAWS PROVIDED ON REQUEST
Yes

Contact

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HQ LOCATION ADDRESS
Avenida Heitor Vieira, 68
Belém Novo, Porto Alegre - RS
91.780-000 Brazil
SOCIAL NETWORKS
WEBSITE
MAIN CONTACT EMAIL
wimbelemdon@wimbelemdon.com.br
+55 (51) 3242-5637