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   Biography
 
Thais Corral is the founder of Instituto Sinal do Vale, a center for the regeneration of ecosystems, communities, and individuals which inspires learning experiences and more authentic relationships through its projects, hospitality services, and educational programs. Our campus is located in the buffer zone between the urban sprawl of Rio and some of the last remaining protected areas of the Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlantica). Thais Corral’s global leadership journey has encompassed a spectrum of experiences which emerged from major changes that occurred within the late 20th century. As part of the Women’s Global Movement, Corral was one of the leaders who actively participated at the Earth Summit in 1992. Together with American Congress representative, Bella Abzug and Nobel Award winner, Wangari Mathaai, she founded WEDO (Women, Environment and Development Organization), which played a major role at UN Global Conferences throughout the 90s. Since 1992, Corral has been implementing global and local initiatives geared at mobilizing and strengthening sustainable development platforms. She is the founder of two established and nationally recognized non-profit organizations in Brasil: Rede de Desenvolvimento Humano (REDEH) and Communication, Education and Information on Gender (CEMINA), which conceived and implemented a women’s radio network of 400 women’s radio programs throughout Brasil. Between 2006-2018, Thais initiated and coordinated the Adapta Sertão Project which created a model of regenerative agriculture to semi-arid regions. Adpata Sertão benefited a whole region of 16 municipalities in the area of the state of Bahia, besides cooperatives and small business geared to protect and sustain the local bioma, caatinga . The project has received several awards. It was recognized a best practice of implementation of the Millenium Development Goal by UNDP ( United Nations Development Program) and the Brazilian Federal Government. In addition to the awards given to the projects that Thais created with teams, she also personally received a number of global awards that acknowledged her professional accomplishments and bestow recognition of her leadership abilities. She was the recipient of the “100 Heroines Award” and the “Award Abril Mulher” for her contribution to the improvement of the status of women in Brazil. She was also recognized as “the Woman of the Year in 2001” by the Brazilian National Council of Women and has received the “Rio Mulher Award” in 2004. In 2005, she was awarded the Tech Award by the Tech Award Museum on Innovation, a major Silicon Valley award for projects that benefits humanity. Amost her several international assignments, Corral sat on the board of directors of a major global initiative known as SouthSouthNorth, she was the director of capacity building and has coordinated projects in 6 countries (Brazil, SouthAfrica, Tanzania, Mozambique, Bangladesh and Indonesia). She then coordinated a project on Evidences and Lessons Learned from Latin America that was carried in partnership with Practical Solutions U.K and represented an important systematization of the learnings of practices on sustainable development. She was also a fellow of LEAD International, the first global organization on education for leadership on sustainable development , and then participated on the international board and headed the chapter of the organization in Brazil during the period 2007-2014. Corral holds a master degree from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Her literature has been published throughout articles and papers in selected magazines and books worldwide. She serves on the advisory board of Ethical Market Place (www.ethicalmarket.com), Instituto Akatu for Conscious Consumption (www.akatu.org) and she is a member of the World Future Council (www.worldfuturecouncil.org) .
 
 
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