{"id":11518,"date":"2013-10-11T00:31:57","date_gmt":"2013-10-11T03:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=11518"},"modified":"2014-06-21T14:30:20","modified_gmt":"2014-06-21T17:30:20","slug":"favela-nao-se-cala-mobilizes-residents-in-complexo-do-caju","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=11518","title":{"rendered":"Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala Mobilizes Residents in Complexo do Caju"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cThe solution to your problems does not come from the outside!\u201d Andr\u00e9 Constantine proclaimed before a group of residents at a meeting in Complexo do Caju<\/a> on Sunday, October 6. \u201cWe are here, also \u2018favelados,\u2019 feeling your same pain,” the Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala<\/a> activist continued. “We are here in solidarity with the struggle of Caju.\u201d Members of the Free Pass Movement and residents from other favelas also took part in the meeting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s meeting represents the first step in the \u201corganic, non-partisan, and participatory\u201d process of incorporating existing grassroots mobilization in Caju into the citywide activist network Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala. Andr\u00e9 urged residents to see the challenges they faced in Caju–including severe air pollution from neighboring factories, geographic segregation due to cross-cutting highways and surrounding industrial equipment, and the threat of\u00a0eviction<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0order to build an overpass linking two major roadways–as part of what he says is the broader model of urban development underway in Rio that favors private interests at the expense of the city\u2019s poor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Residents of Caju, which is located at the northern edge of Rio\u2019s Port Region<\/a>, fear their community is becoming the industrial dumping ground for the City’s port revitalization project, Porto Maravilha<\/a>. Caju is already a victim of exclusionary urban planning strategies and historically low investment in public services such as healthcare and education. The burden from the port revitalization includes environmental damage from industrial development and a rise in traffic as well as planned evictions to allow for the construction of an overpass connecting the Linha Vermelha highway to the Rio-Niteroi Bridge.<\/p>\n

In a statement celebrating the recent arrival of a Pacifying Police Unit (UPP)<\/a> in Complexo do Caju in March of this year, Governor Sergio Cabral referred to the UPP installation<\/a> as \u201cthe rebirth of the region\u201d and claimed the area \u201cneeds the UPP for the residents and even for the economic aspect [as] the area brings in nearly R$1 billion in taxes per year for the city.\u201d At the meeting on Sunday, Caju residents conveyed a different story, one in which promised upgrades in sanitation<\/a> and infrastructure have not been fulfilled, and in which the arrival of the UPP is the first in a series of steps to control the population and strategically consolidate the area into an industrial park.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Myllena Cunha, a young energetic community leader and student at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), challenged the government interventions in the region: \u201cWhy would you close schools and hospitals in the neighborhood with one of the lowest Human Development Index figures in the city?\u201d she asked. \u201cThe movement should be reversed. Why does the governor send an invasion of the UPP and not an invasion of schools and hospitals?\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexandre Moicano, another organizer from Caju, declared that the proposed overpass–conceived without community input and with work originally set to begin in January of this year–will inevitably displace residents. Both he and Andr\u00e9 warned that the City\u2019s claim that only a few houses will initially be removed could result in many more removals down the line. \u00a0Andr\u00e9 explained that municipal employees use the tactic of negotiating with individual families in an attempt to fragment resistance and cause it to fail.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Health risks and environmental degradation threaten residents of the Caju favelas, which are enclosed on all sides by access routes, parking for trucks, highways, factories, and cemeteries. \u201cNot a single project considers the quality of life here,\u201d explained Alexandre, going on to say that the newly launched asphalt plant likely violates environmental regulations given its proximity to residential areas, and that the levels of air pollution must be among the highest in Rio. Though the director of the Caju health center has requested resources to study air quality in the area, Moicano fears that the results of this research would be so damaging to the Mayor\u2019s image that they will not be released. \u201cWe do not know where to look for the data,\u201d he explained. \u201cThe research was done, however the information is not shared with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearly 80 community organizers and residents were present at the Pra\u00e7a do Campinho in the Chatuba favela to discuss means of expressing grievances and becoming protagonists in the struggle. The assembled crowd grew over the course of the two-hour meeting and, by the end, even the elderly men playing dominoes in the corner of the pavilion were drawn into the discussion. Fiery speeches situated Caju\u2019s struggles alongside those of diverse favelas across the city, in which residents are either being forcibly removed or pushed out through processes of gentrification<\/a> and rising costs of living. Throughout the meeting, one Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala organizer passed out \u201cManifesto Against Removals\u201d pamphlets, a document written in powerful and accessible language that captured the spirit of the movement. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Myllena explained tangible steps that Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala will take toward justice for residents and highlighted its experience aggregating and articulating resistance struggles throughout the city. Organizers plan to work with a technical team in the coming weeks that includes architects to assess the impact of current and future public works projects and lawyers to denounce coercive tactics used by City authorities to remove families.<\/p>\n

Leaders emphasized the importance of community participation and solidarity in these early stages of mobilization. \u201cWe can bring architects and engineers to evaluate what the impact of this overpass will be, but this apparatus won\u2019t help if there isn\u2019t internal organization,\u201d Andr\u00e9 explained. The meeting concluded with the collection of signatures and contact information for the soon-to-be-created Residents\u2019 Commission and the announcement of the next meeting on Sunday, October 20, with the technical team.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe solution to your problems does not come from the outside!\u201d Andr\u00e9 Constantine proclaimed before a group of residents at a meeting in Complexo do Caju on Sunday, October 6. \u201cWe are here, also \u2018favelados,\u2019 […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":11558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1293,1290,1333,335,336,1329],"tags":[726,801,1261,756,258,783,11,107,1292,15,530,148,365],"writer":[1020,1770],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-civilsociety","9":"category-event-reports","10":"category-policies","11":"category-violations","12":"category-by-international-observers","13":"tag-air","14":"tag-caju","15":"tag-central-rio","16":"tag-community-organizing","17":"tag-community-solution","18":"tag-favela-nao-se-cala","19":"tag-forced-evictions","20":"tag-health","21":"tag-organizing","22":"tag-pacifying-police-unit","23":"tag-pollution","24":"tag-port-region","25":"tag-zero-participation","26":"writer-courtney-allen-crumpler","27":"writer-kate-steiker-ginzberg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11518"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=11518"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=11518"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=11518"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=11518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}