SAS Brasil is a non-profit and itinerant social organization created in 2013. Since then, we’ve benefited more than 55,000 people in 14 States, including expeditions alongside the Sertões International Rally, and separated actions such as those after the dam disasters in Mariana and Brumadinho, both in the Minas Gerais State. In 2020, with the SARS-CoV-2 (“new coronavirus”) pandemic, and the spread of covid-19 in Brazil, SAS Brasil began providing medical and psychological free assistance via telemedicine, a technology we’d known and been using since the previous year.
With telemedicine, we started offering socially vulnerable people in communities in large capitals and dozens of cities access to specialized and quality health care. With that, we’ve avoided the displacement of these people to hospitals and health units during the pandemic. Since the adoption of telemedicine, more than 30,000 people¹ have benefited.
(1) Data as of November 2020; for weekly updated numbers, visit our special page.
Highlights of our story
SAS Brasil was created in 2013 by eight friends, who traveled alongside the 21st Sertões International Rally with two cars, two motorcycles, a campaign tent that we’d to assembly and dismount everyday. We benefited 1,500 people in 4 cities in Goiás State (Goianésia, Minaçu, Pirenópolis and Porangatu) and in Natividade (Tocantins State). A total of 3,327 km (2,000 mi) were traveled. Check out more 2013 photos
Picture: Ton Pederneiras
In the following year, our numbers doubled: 16 volunteers and almost 3,000 people benefited alongside 22nd Sertões International Rally. We went back to Goiás State, visiting Ipameri, and traveled to three Minas Gerais State towns: Bonito de Minas, Conceição do Mato Dentro and Olhos d’Água, traveling a total of 2,662 km (1,600 mi). We also built and started using our first adapted container. Check out more 2014 photos
Picture: Ton Pederneiras
In 2015, SAS Brasil traveled even further: 17,049 km (10,600 mi). In addition to the 23rd Sertões International Rally, for the first time we’d autonomous expeditions and participated in local social events. We debuted in several states: in addition to Minas Gerais, we were in Bahia, visited both inland and coastal São Paulo State, and also Paraná, Mato Grosso do Sul, Ceará and Pernambuco states. More than 7,400 people were benefited over the year. Check out more 2015 photos
Foto: Ton Pederneiras
In 2016, we traveled 9,132 km (5,700 mi) in the States of São Paulo, Goiás and Tocantins. We participated in the Sertões International Rally for the 4th time (Cavalcante/GO, Natividade and Ponte Alta do Tocantins/TO) and returned to the Castelhanos community, in Ilhabela (coastal São Paulo state). More than 7,400 people were benefited by the actions and by a charity event in which we participated in São Paulo. Check out more 2016 photos
Picture: Ton Pederneiras
In our 5th year, we’d purple commemorative t-shirts. We traveled 14,159 km (8,800 mi) in 6 expeditions. In addition to the 25th Sertões International Rally (when we visited Mato Grosso for the first time), we also debuted in Paraíba. It was also the first year of our incursions into poor areas of São Paulo, the same State SAS Brasil was born in: we visited Sete Barras, in the Vale do Ribeira region, several times over the year. The number of beneficiaries reached a record: more than 11,600 people!
Picture: Gabriel Toueg
We traveled 11,056 km (6,900 mi) and touched lives of more than 6,000 people in 2018. We continued the project in poor areas of São Paulo State, traveling to Biritiba Mirim three times. At the Sertões International Rally, we stepped into yet a new state, Piauí, assisting people from beautiful São Raimundo Nonato town. At the end of the year, we made an expedition to the Preá fishers community, on the coast of Ceará. Check out more 2018 photos
Picture: Gabriela Valente
2019 was a year of many changes! We started using a new logo, new website and new visual identity! We became one of the three dimensions of the Sertões International Rally, now renamed Sertões, alongside competition and tourism. In the 27th edition of the race, a team of 92 volunteers joined, a record number! We made a total of 10 expeditions, including three to Brumadinho region (Minas Gerais State) following the dam disaster. We also debuted Anariá na Escola, a project on women’s health and against domestic violence taken into four São Paulo city public schools. We traveled more than 17,000 km (10,600 mi). In terms of impact, we’d a new record: 18,120 people benefited. See more photos. Check out more 2019 photos
Picture: Fernanda Ary
The covid-19 pandemic made us reinvent our way of bringing specialized and quality healthcare to those who need it most, adopting telemedicine. By early November 2020, more than 33,200 people had already been benefited within socially vulnerable communities in dozens of cities across the country. We also adapted one of our mobile units and transformed it into an itinerant blood center, which collected blood in the capital and Greater São Paulo.
Picture: Roy Bento
Health is the joy of the body; joy is the health of the soul
Designed to bring healthcare with amusement to populations in regions with little or no access to specialized medicine, SAS Brasil assumed, right from its beginning, an itinerant essence, traveling all the way to underserved cities with a full structure, mobile units mounted on trucks or maritime containers and complete medical structure. We’ve always believed that health and joy totally combine together! For this reason, in our actions, one can never happen without the other.
During the pandemic, it’s been no different. With telemedicine, we’re also able to insert amusement elements to make better the day of people at home, isolated, often with mental health problems. Our doctors and psychologists wear superhero caps, we interact with the human beings on the other side of the screen and we always offer care with affection and empathy. One of the highlights of the telemedicine project is a post-release conversation, in which patients can clear up any doubts and evaluate the consultations.
Whether face-to-face or via telemedicine, the task of providing the poor with this access to health, which – we believe – must be universal, is carried out by multidisciplinary teams of professionals from various areas, in which each member lends his specific talents and knowledge to offer , voluntarily, entertainment and health actions for the populations of the cities visited.
Whether face-to-face or via telemedicine, we take on the task of bringing quality medicine and specialized and humanized health care to the needy population. We believe that the access to this type of healthcare should be universal, although Brazil is still far from that reality. We do this with multidisciplinary teams of professionals from various areas, in which each member brings their talents and specific knowledge to voluntarily offer entertainment and health actions to the populations of the cities we visit.