# Easy Plenary: Using ReactJS to follow live updates from the Brazilian Congress

![](https://pro2-bar-s3-cdn-cf.myportfolio.com/56982c6e-6417-4393-a7af-6e8110891558/b7cf1431-d95e-474c-9d73-d10bedcf680d_rw_1920.png?h=3e9f54f8ccf356f8fe4996e5d5e7c288 align="left")

The Easy Plenary platform helps to solve a very difficult problem for the Brazilian Parliament: To talk about the legislative process in a way citizens comprehend it. Through a series of interviews with citizens, we found out that using single-medium approaches (such as the radio, or tv) to communicate the daily routine of representatives and the law making process severely lacks the power to engage the population in getting to really know how the Parliament works. The system as a whole is composed of two parts: The behind-the-scenes platform which gathers input from journalists and a real-time newsfeed of events to which updates are published. My role in this project has consisted of implementing the front-end of the former alongside another developer using ReactJS.

![](https://pro2-bar-s3-cdn-cf.myportfolio.com/56982c6e-6417-4393-a7af-6e8110891558/1590847e-1046-443f-b92c-25ece13e3f98_rw_3840.png?h=d3a9938b24e9f7d4ffbf384c0ab5e9a0 align="left")

Real-time newsfeed which serves citizens

![](https://pro2-bar-s3-cdn-cf.myportfolio.com/56982c6e-6417-4393-a7af-6e8110891558/80118c48-67f3-4503-a604-7da031c8c219_rw_1920.png?h=c4c64f6c75b67e0602b95992130bf1bf align="left")

Behind the scenes dashboard

The main challenge I tackled was the publishing part of the behind the scenes platform, where journalists enter their texts, images, tweets and so on. React really helped here: It provides an easy way to separate concerns for each component (such as the input box, the update feed and so on) and to pass data between each of them so that the UX is flawless.

![](https://pro2-bar-s3-cdn-cf.myportfolio.com/56982c6e-6417-4393-a7af-6e8110891558/8a3efc7a-571d-4ddd-aa10-65690499071f_rw_600.gif?h=bdc7402bb0a7a0937ebd89ba5318dc86 align="left")

  
The code for this project is open source and lives [here](https://github.com/labhackercd/linguagem-simples-front?ref=blog.teomoura.com), as well as instructions to install the software and how to contribute. We hope this project truly helps citizens engage with the law making process, especially given the turbulent times we're currently facing in politics.