Posts tagged community organizing
Life in the Favela: Public Security Debated in Maré
May 14th
“What is this ‘pacification’ that is coming?” challenged favela residents last Saturday May 11th at a debate on public security in Maré. For weeks, the group of communities has been undergoing daily raids by the BOPE (Special Operations Police Battalion) in a government effort to prepare the area for the installation of the Police Pacifying Units (UPPs). The process includes illegal searches of homes without individual warrants and operations involving helicopters and armored tanks.
“The discourse from the state and from the commercial media [surrounding pacification] is a big lie,” explained Gizele Martins, coordinator and journalist at Maré’s 13-year-old community newspaper O Cidadão. More >
Impacted Communities: Manguinhos Plays Host to Resistance Efforts from Across the City
Apr 30th
Manguinhos residents denounce a year's worth of standing sewage water in an area where PAC upgrading supposedly addressed infrastructure issues.
“Here we are, abandoned in the sewage!” two Manguinhos residents exclaimed, pointing to the flooded, mosquito-ridden streets encircling their homes that had been that way for over a year. They recounted that government programs such as the federal Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) and PAC II had promised infrastructure improvements to the community, but none of them had addressed the urgent sewage situation. “I have six children (including a newborn). Where I am going to go?” one woman explained, exasperated.
These complaints were voiced More >
A Climate of Apprehension in Maré, Rio’s Largest Favela Complex, as Residents Await the UPP
Mar 27th
For the original Opinion piece by Eliane Sousa Silva, Director of Redes da Maré (Maré Development Network), in Portuguese, published first in print in O Globo, republished by LECC, click here.
News of the UPP’s entry into Maré, Rio de Janeiro’s largest favela, comes preceded by great speculation. After all, no one knows when or how it will be implemented. Thus, residents await confirmation with anticipation and apprehension. They understand that this initiative represents the coming, though tardy, of the right to public security. Without a doubt, the guarantee of this right is an important step in legitimizing the status as citizen More >
‘The City is Ours!’ A Protest for Rio’s Public Spaces
Mar 24th
Last Saturday, March 15th, a few hundred spirited citizens gathered in unity to protest the wave of privatization that is accompanying Rio’s preparations for next year’s World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, in a march from Praça Saens Peña in Tijuca to the Maracanã stadium.
The event, named ‘The City is Ours!,’ was organized by the Popular Committee for the World Cup and Olympics, an organization created to chronicle and redress the violence, abuses and illegalities in the run-up to the events. As the band began playing, brightly-colored facepaint, stickers, t-shirts and pamphlets circulated, journalists interviewed and took notes, and banners with More >
Four Examples of Resistance
Mar 11th
For the original article by Maíra Mathias, Raquel Júnia and Raquel Torres in Portuguese, click here.
There was a community hampering Rio de Janeiro making itself beautiful for tourists coming to the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. And still is, thanks to the resistance of hundreds of people, and in spite of the government’s systematic intrusions and tired arguments that you can’t stop progress, that the families will be compensated, that the city will help with the displacements, that a parking lot is more important now, etc. In this interview with Brasil de Fato, people who actively participate in the resistance process More >
