“Do as much good as possible”

Inspiration and reflection are the feelings we get after talking to Breno. Straight from Osasco, in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, a 19-year-old young man addresses a questioning look at reality, humanity, and himself. Inside him, there is a profound restlessness to seek virtue, serve, and reduce suffering as much as possible during his lifetime. Nowadays, he works with renowned professor Marcelo Gleiser and is getting ready to begin his studies at Dartmouth.

His heart is big, but he also knows the importance of using reason to measure and think about the impact of his actions, trying to eradicate the root of the social problems instead of just masking them.

The spark that brought him into the social impact scenario was discussions, inside his teacher’s Maria classroom, about various issues in our society. Not satisfied with accepting those problems, he decides to do something about it. That is when he learned about the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and created Building the Future, a project to empower youth to be agents of change by taking sustainable development to their schools.

Breno’s path crossed with Marcelo’s (LALA’s director in Brazil) when he was researching resources that helped students to study abroad. He says that Marcelo was a great mentor for him to go beyond his studies, presented him to LALA, and Breno ended up being in LALA’s first Bootcamp class, the BLB1. Since then, he did not stop connecting and accompanying the growth of this community: he went to many camps as a volunteer, many of those during his vacation time, planned webinars for the network, was part of the LALA Academy, developed the curriculum of the LALA Clubs, and actively participates in activities inside of LALA.

Breno’s legacy in LALA is admirable. He says that the organization helped him see the world and himself with a more questioning look, encouraging reflections about his world and how to live a full life. Here, he found a community that allowed him to flourish as a person, and at the same time, he dedicated himself to making the community flourish, which he says is his biggest present and luck. He brought an immense presence, co-creating an ecosystem full of human connection and growth.

The message that he leaves to someone who is entering LALA now is to look at someone who is beside you as if it were the biggest opportunity to awaken what is best in you. We thank him for his presence and intention, and we wish that each day his life gets full of virtue and connections.

These stories are written and edited by the Storytelling Team, an alumni-lead team that collects stories with the objective of recognizing and celebrating the wonderful work that volunteers, staff, and alumni do for LALA and also showing how the organization has impacted their life.