{"id":13606,"date":"2014-02-26T17:00:30","date_gmt":"2014-02-26T20:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=13606"},"modified":"2015-12-24T00:46:17","modified_gmt":"2015-12-24T03:46:17","slug":"cerro-cora-residents-protest-for-favela-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=13606","title":{"rendered":"Cerro-Cor\u00e1 Residents Protest for Favela Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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

On Sunday February 22, some 20 activists gathered in Pra\u00e7a S\u00e3o Judas Tadeu, outside the bondinho<\/em> (tram) station leading up to the Christ the Redeemer statue, in Rio\u2019s leafy Cosme Velho neighborhood. Hailing from Cerro Cor\u00e1, a favela just five minutes walk from this busy tourist spot, they wanted to combat the invisibility of Rio\u2019s favelas and \u201cshow Cariocas and tourists what happens underneath Christ the Redeemer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The activists, members of Cerro Cor\u00e1\u2013Moradores em Movimento<\/em>, highlighted a number of issues currently facing Rio\u2019s favelas: home demolitions and evictions<\/a>, failure of basic services such as water<\/a> and electricity<\/a>, and police violence<\/a> against favela residents all being publicized. Watched by crowds of tourists on their way up to the statue, they unfurled banners and put up posters in Portuguese, English and Spanish\u2013from \u201cThe Favela is part of the City,\u201d to \u201cCabral: Oppressor from 1500 to 2014.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

The protest included a performance watched by passers-by. An indigenous Amerindian, a slave and a modern-day favela resident all stood tied and handcuffed by \u201cCabral,\u201d a hybrid of Pedro \u00c1lvares Cabral<\/a>, the Portuguese military commander credited with discovering Brazil in 1500, and his modern-day namesake S\u00e9rgio Cabral<\/a>, the current governor of Rio state. Cabral explained his desire to conquer and control, while the three prisoners explained their plights and suffering at his hands.<\/p>\n

Once the scene finished, a drum began to beat and the group burst into song, with renditions of funk classics such as Rap da Felicidade<\/a><\/em>\u2013\u201cI just want to be happy\/And walk peacefully in the favela where I was born\u201d\u2013and chants about corruption, violence and the right of the favela to the city.<\/p>\n

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

David dos Santos, one of the organizers of the event, elaborated: \u201cToday we decided to come down from the favela, to come to a tourist spot, in order to explain a bit to the visitors what is happening in Rio\u2019s favelas\u2026 We performed a show that speaks a little about the situation today, which is not that different from colonization.\u201d He continued: \u201cThere are removals happening all over Rio. We\u2019re here resisting\u2013here to say that the favela has been abandoned.”<\/p>\n

\u201cFive minutes away from the Corcovado, people see a beautiful landscape, but little do they know that we live there without water, and without electricity,\u201d said Jeferson Dias da Cunha, member of the group and one of the actors in the performance. \u201cThe importance of today\u2019s event is to bring this reality and show it to the tourists who come here, to show them that Rio isn\u2019t simply \u2018marvellous.\u2019 It is marvellous, but it has a population whose needs have to be met.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cerro Cor\u00e1 \u2013 Moradores em Movimento<\/em> was founded last year by residents of Cerro Cor\u00e1 to campaign for and protect the rights of the community. Their projects include creating a community museum and library. According to Jeferson, they want to \u201cinspire the residents, and bring them a political consciousness so they don\u2019t wait around for the State, because they\u2019re only going to come every four years, wanting votes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas On Sunday February 22, some 20 activists gathered in Pra\u00e7a S\u00e3o Judas Tadeu, outside the bondinho (tram) station leading up to the Christ the Redeemer statue, in Rio\u2019s leafy Cosme Velho […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":13636,"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":[1290,1333,329,328,1329],"tags":[371,1098,756,221,11,501,282,26,25,485,1292,17,18,668,156,370],"writer":[1776],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-civilsociety","8":"category-event-reports","9":"category-solutions","10":"category-understanding-rio","11":"category-by-international-observers","12":"tag-cedae","13":"tag-cerro-cora","14":"tag-community-organizing","15":"tag-favela-culture","16":"tag-forced-evictions","17":"tag-funk","18":"tag-housing","19":"tag-housing-rights","20":"tag-human-rights","21":"tag-light-electricity","22":"tag-organizing","23":"tag-police-brutality","24":"tag-protest","25":"tag-governor-sergio-cabral","26":"tag-south-zone","27":"tag-water","28":"writer-benjamin-parkin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13606","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\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13606"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=13606"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=13606"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=13606"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=13606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}