I sat down and had a chat with University of Southern California second year Master of Planning student Germano Johansson Neto, who established a nonprofit called  coURB, the Institute for Collaborative Urbanism, in May 2015. The organization, made up of a group of young professionals from Latin America studying in graduate institutions across the United States, aims to improve the quality of life in urban environments.

Prior to his graduate studies, Germano earned Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the Federal University of Paraná, in Curitiba, Brazil. During his time in Brazil, he has worked in private, public, and nonprofit organizations. While he appreciates the lessons he has learned in these organizations, he felt constrained by the work he was doing. Thus, he pursued a degree in urban planning at USC to learn more from the nonprofit environment here.

“I came to the United States ready to establish a network of professional individuals that were ready to prioritize alternative transportation and active transportation, instead of thinking of just economic growth,” he shared. Since then, he was able to find a group of dedicated peers that had similar passions by posting social media platforms. “We never had face to face contact, but we were able to accomplish creating a broad plan for the city,” he shared. “I feel much closer to them now,” he added.

In coURB’s first ten months, the members worked to identify a city with which to work, collaborated with other nonprofits, and conducted online public participation events to engage residents about envisioning a future project for the city in order to respond to a Request for Proposals (RFP) issued by the Development Bank of Latin America. Their proposed grant application was selected as a finalist by the bank. coURB has decided to donate the project design to the city, and partner with them in hopes that their ideas will one day be implemented. Since then, the group has attended several conferences and even attended a high-level political forum on Sustainable Development hosted by the United Nations. 

“Now we are building a board of advisor made academics, social entrepreneurs, and government members that can inform our decisions moving forward as a nonprofit and coURB is preparing to host a Collaborative Institute Conference in Brazil where we will invite professionals and leaders from different cities in Latin America to participate,” said Germano.

Arpita Sharma

Arpita Sharma is a dual Master of Public Policy and Master of Planning Candidate at the USC Price School. She is interested in issues of health inequities, sustainable land use development and active transportation. She expects to complete her degrees in May 2017. She can be reached at arpitasharma.net or at [email protected].