With funding partially financed by the National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES), Veracel is investing over the 2004-2005 period about R$ 21 million in social programs earmarked for the municipalities where the company operates.

We signed a partnership agreement with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) for the development of indicators regarding the performance and the impacts of our social action and programs in the region.

Run in partnership with the government of the state of Bahia and the city governments, our initiatives were concentrated on environmental sanitation projects (water and sewage networks and improvement in waste collection and treatment systems), hospital equipment and health clinics, the reform and expansion of day care centers and schools, the construction of public housing, and the paving of streets and their landscaping through the planting of trees.

Health

Our social health program works in cooperation with the municipalities through preventive and curative medical-hospital plans, both out-patient and in-hospital care. We also permanently train health professionals who work in the region.

We are investing R$ 1.4 million in a project to eliminate leprosy and fight tuberculosis in the regions’ municipalities, benefiting more than 300,000 persons over a two-year period. This project is being carried out in partnership with the government of the state of Bahia and the city governments in the region.

Our health actions in the social sphere also include improving clinics in the region, expanding the number of hospital beds, increasing the number of hours of health care availability and the offer of health specialties and examinations. We strive, through this, to increase the capacity for the identification and treatment of diseases and to reduce neonatal mortality.

Environmental Sanitation

Our environmental sanitation program is supplemental to the health program because an improvement in conditions of hygiene — through the building of sewage and water treatment systems, garbage collection and rainwater runoff galleries — significantly reduces the indices of diseases and contamination affecting the population.

Thus, we are carrying out projects for installation of environmental sanitation networks and the construction of residential bathrooms in the district of Barrolândia, a community located 18 km from the Veracel pulp mill.

Safety

For the initiatives in support of public safety in the region, especially in the municipalities that are most influenced by the presence of the mill, Veracel has established partnerships with the federal police, the local uniformed police and civil police in the state of Bahia, building precinct houses and supplying vehicles as part of a program to support the development of the activities of these public safety units.

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