Marcella Bertoluci
November 24, 2022
Meet Marcella Bertoluci, JA Brazil alumna and winner of the “I am JA” Video Contest in 2019 at the JA Global Alumni Conference. We connected back with her to see how her project is coming along.
JA Worldwide: Hi Marcella, tell us a bit more about yourself and your JA alumni journey.
Marcella Bertoluci: My name is Marcella, I am 22 years old and I live in the south of Brazil. I finished my studies in Business Administration this year and I have always loved the idea of understanding the business world and the universe of entrepreneurship. That’s actually why I ended up in contact with Junior Achievement. My school offered the opportunity to participate in one of the JA’s programs back in 2016, and for 15 weeks I lived the closest experience possible to what was being an entrepreneur. After that, I kept being active in the alumni group and due to that, I had multiple opportunities that gave me another perspective on my future. As a consequence, I was sure I would follow this entrepreneurial path for my career.
JA Worldwide: In 2019 you won the “I am JA video contest” at the first-ever JA Global Alumni Conference. What was your project back then?
Marcella: At the same year I participated in JA’s program, I had another amazing opportunity from my school. It was an event for the students of social project creation and I made my own. I was indeed inspired by JA to be the protagonist of my own story and as a consequence, I embraced the opportunity. My project was an initiative to help the adoption process of children and teenagers that had little expectations of having a new family. I gathered adults in the line to adopt these sheltered children in my old school with the support and partnership of the government. After five editions of the events since 2017, 7 kids got adopted due to this initiative. As a consequence, the government integrated the project into its official agenda.
JA Worldwide: How did your project change who you are, what’s new?
Marcella: I definitely became more proactive, responsible, empathetic, and resilient after this whole process. Unfortunately, I can no longer execute it as it was before in my city due to political and social concerns. However, I can still impact people in different manners, that’s definitely something that I have learned from all of this experience. No matter the circumstances we can always find ways to fulfill our beliefs. And of course, this project will be forever my baby and one of my greatest achievements.
JA Worldwide: What are your big dreams for the future?
Marcella: Currently I am trying to balance my work and a new project. During this whole journey, I have cross passed a lot of challenges concerning the adoption scenario and the financial sustainability of my previous initiative. Basically, a lot of families that were formed during these years didn’t adapt, therefore the families returned the children and teenagers to the shelters. I dedicated my completion of coursework to understanding what causes an impact in this family’s lives to avoid breaking them apart. With the knowledge, I gathered from interviews I have created a phygital game for foster families that builds stronger relationship in order to avoid the adoption devolution. With all that said, I aim to open a company with this initiative in the future and actually generating positive impact in these peoples lives.
Connect with Marcella and thousands of JA alumni on Gather, the JA alumni community.