Brazil’s Landless Workers' Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, or MST) is Latin America's largest popular movement. The MST has been at the forefront of social action for just land distribution for more than 20 years. The MST works with peasants to identify and settle on underutilized land, gain legal title to the land and bring it into productive use. Through the MST's efforts, close to 350,000 families have been settled and another 70,000 families are living in encampments, awaiting title to their land.

By focusing on voluntary cooperative use of the land, the MST is helping to confront the social decay that has plagued Brazilian society while addressing the scarcity of resources available to the rural poor. Settlements have established 1,200 primary schools and 60 secondary schools, with 150,000 pupils. Settlement activity has created 900,000 new jobs in the area of agriculture alone, with at least as many related jobs created in nearby cities. Social indicators, from infant mortality to school attendance, are generally dramatically better in MST settlements than in the rest of rural Brazil.

This is not just about land—the MST has program areas that encompass not only land reform but education, communication, culture, human rights,international relations, youth, gender and environment. The movement aims to build a society without exploitation, where labor has supremacy over capital, with just distribution of land and wealth; striving for equal economic, political, social and cultural rights; encouraging humanistic and socialistic values; and combating all forms of discrimination.

Grassroots works with the MST on the national and state level. We work with the national office in Brasília; the MST-Maranhão; and the MST-Pernambuco. In the state of Maranhão, Grassroots is supporting efforts to strengthen the cooperative sector and network for implementing agrarian reform in Maranhão. In the state of Pernambuco, Grassroots is supporting the MST's Human Rights Project, which provides legal assistance and training in monitoring abuse of human rights.