07/01/2024

Outstanding Graduate Student Planning Project

Amplifying the Voices of Quilombola Communities through Community-Based Tourism and Cultural Preservation

University of Michigan
Master of Urban and Regional Planning

The client-partners, located in Alcântara (Brazilian Amazon), trusted the student team with the task of co-producing a community-led, solidarity tourism strategy to generate both visibility and resources that will be reinvested in the community’s struggle to secure collective title and promote community well-being and cultural preservation. Deliverables included: A Community-Based Tourism (CBT) strategy, a website and logo to establish a first-ever comprehensive online platform, and photovoice workshops that produced photographs and oral histories. Jurors said: "We were impressed by the sensitivity of the engagement with the local community and how responsive the final recommendations were to the desires of residents." MAP congratulates students: sara faraj, Catherine “Cat” Diggs, Russell Lin, and Fabricio Martins and faculty Dr. Ana Paula Pimentel Walker!