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For me the Caatinga is life just as water is life.

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The dry season is a natural contrast that we can't avoid. We learned to deal with it and life goes on and gets better.

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The Caatinga is like us, alive.

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If we destroy it, we would be like killing someone - a crime.

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When I was young, we had two names for caatinga passion fruit:

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wild passion fruit and "ox" passion fruit.

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Here it grows wild, we didn't plant it. It grew on its own.

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We used to pick some, but most of it was wasted.

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Wild caatinga passion fruit is the same as when it is planted - It just creeps up a tree or a cactus and grows.

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It is different from when you plant or manage it.

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Caatinga passion fruit and umbu plum used to go to waste, but after the work of the co-op that changed.

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Children used to use it as a ball and now it's worth 40 Reais a bag.

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The Caatinga passion fruit is economically viable and ecologically correct...

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It is a native fruit that only uses water.

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70% of the people in the co-op who use native fruit are women.

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Women who process the fruit and make jellies, jams and pulps.

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They market these products, increasing family income by 30%.

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We started with a course about processing fruits around 1997

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with a group of about 20 women, who then became multipliers, leaders in their communities.

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30, 40 years ago many people used to move to São Paulo since there were no jobs here.

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Today 90% of the youth still live in their community.

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In our community the majority are youth who work with the processing of caatinga passion fruit, umbu plum and mango.

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And at the co-op 20% of the workers are young people.

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this improved quality of life, knowledge and education of families.

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It is another lifestyle that at the same time shows the sustainability of the semi-arid region...

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that here it is possible to live - to live well.