Adriana Calabi, born in São Paulo in 1971, holds a degree in Social Sciences from Unicamp. She has worked on developing policies relating to indigenous peoples in the State of São Paulo, especially the Guarani Mbyá. That work involved devising actions and projects to protect indigenous peoples’ rights and to cherish their cultures, with particular emphasis on training and qualification efforts allowing indigenous representatives to perform conscious, well-informed work with agencies tasked with creating and implementing public policies. More recently, alongside indigenous friends, partners and allies, she created Instituto Maracá, one of the first indigenous-established NGOs in Brazil, in a bid to achieve greater autonomy and independence in developing actions and projects proposed and devised by indigenous representatives themselves.
Currently, the Maracá Institute participates in the management of the Museum of Indigenous Cultures in the city of São Paulo together with ACAM Portinari and the Department of Culture, Economy and Creative Industry of the State of São Paulo.