From Economy to Prosperity - Brazil's case

When I asked participants in a workshop at Sol Nascente, one of the largest low-income urban settlements in Latin America, what came to mind when they heard the word economy, the answers were immediate: debt, crisis, money, lack of money.

Then I asked a second question: What does prosperity mean?

The room changed.

People spoke about health, care, dignity, belonging, good relationships and opportunities for young people.

That simple contrast became one of the most important insights of a Living Lab on Life-Centered Economies that I have been developing in Brazil.

Over three meetings, community leaders, educators, artists and local residents worked together to reflect on what prosperity means in their territory and how it could be strengthened.

To support these conversations, we tested a set of tools inspired by Doughnut Economics and Strategic Regenerative Design.

The Doughnut framework helped participants connect local challenges to wider social and ecological systems. Dimension cards encouraged them to look at issues from different perspectives and explore relationships that often remain invisible. Regenerative principle cards shifted conversations from problems toward possibilities, while a criteria and indicators matrix helped translate aspirations into concrete ways of monitoring change.

One participant reflected that the tools gave the group “a direction” and made discussions easier and more focused. Another highlighted how they helped organize ideas and identify priorities for future projects and funding opportunities.

Perhaps the most powerful insight emerged when participants identified hip-hop as something far more significant than a cultural activity. They described it as a form of community infrastructure: a space for political education, belonging, mutual support and collective organization.

It reminded us that many of the things that sustain life in a territory are rarely visible in conventional economic indicators.

The experience reinforced an important lesson for me: people often struggle to connect the economy with prosperity, but when allowed to collectively reflect on what matters, they can articulate rich and nuanced visions of a good life.

In this sense, Doughnut-inspired tools did not provide answers. They helped create the conditions for communities to ask better questions—and to begin defining prosperity on their own terms.