{"id":22424,"date":"2015-06-18T09:00:41","date_gmt":"2015-06-18T12:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=22424"},"modified":"2019-05-08T09:45:25","modified_gmt":"2019-05-08T12:45:25","slug":"militant-favela-activist-wins-historic-election-in-babilonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=22424","title":{"rendered":"‘Militant’ Favela Activist Wins Historic Election in Babil\u00f4nia"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The Chapa Amarela<\/em>\u00a0campaign ticket\u00a0won the Neighborhood Association elections on April 26 in the community of Babil\u00f4nia<\/a>, in Rio\u2019s South Zone<\/a>, with 394 votes. A total of 754 residents voted, choosing between the Chapa Amarela and the incumbent Chapa Verde, which won the remaining 360 votes.<\/p>\n

Leader of the Chapa Amarela and newly elected president of the Residents’ Association, Andr\u00e9 Constantine<\/a> celebrated the result as a chance \u201cto rescue the association;” to bring transparency, bring unity and reinstate it as \u201ca tool to fight to represent the aspirations and desires of the residents and not the public power.\u201d\u00a0Andr\u00e9 has become a well-known figure in favela advocacy circles for his impassioned speeches<\/a>, historical references and proactive approach.<\/p>\n

Residents of Babil\u00f4nia echoed these desires, expressing disappointment with previous presidents and concern with previous\u00a0corruption and inefficiency. Thiago, a business owner in Babil\u00f4nia, said: \u201cI hope the association gets better. There are a lot of things the last ticket\u00a0did not do, so I am hoping the Chapa Amarela can do these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Andr\u00e9 emphasized\u00a0fighting corruption as a principal pledge of his presidency but was quick to stress this is a fight he wants to take to other communities around Rio. He believes his position as a \u201cmilitant politician,\u201d and as part of the Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala<\/a>\u00a0(“the favela will not shut up”) movement means his campaign ticket has “a dimension which is a more macro view of the issues that happen in the city of Rio de Janeiro, because my view is not micro, it is not just focused on Babil\u00f4nia.\u201d He sees mutual solidarity as an intrinsic component<\/a> of favela culture and has been an important figure supporting\u00a0communities citywide in their struggles, especially against eviction.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnifying the fight of the favelas\u201d is especially important at this moment, says Andr\u00e9, because the city faces a housing crisis with widespread removals. A recent study identified Rio as the city with the largest increase in the cost\u00a0of living worldwide over the last six years<\/a>. He believes the favelas of Rio are all under threat, whether that be the threat of forced removals such as in Vila Aut\u00f3dromo<\/a> or the process of gentrification<\/a> sweeping the city and now affecting Babil\u00f4nia.<\/p>\n

Chapa Amarela intends to \u201csoften\u201d the impact of gentrification, which some argue will be \u201cthe biggest threat to favelas<\/a>\u201d in Rio in the future, by creating a territorial museum in\u00a0the community<\/a>. The members of the ticket want to take advantage of the media spotlight currently on Babil\u00f4nia, due to the Globo network’s\u00a0soap opera\u00a0titled\u00a0Babil\u00f4nia<\/em><\/a>, to pressure the City into funding an open-air museum, which will \u201crescue the origins of our identity as favelados<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the first actions<\/a> of the new Neighborhood Association was to organize a mutir\u00e3o<\/a><\/em>, or traditional day of collective action to resolve a local issue. During the cleaning event on May 24, Andr\u00e9 said<\/a>:\u00a0“Today we’re organizing the first of many\u00a0mutir\u00f5es<\/em> that will follow. The mutir\u00e3o<\/em>…is a recovery\u00a0of our history. If the favela exists to this day, it’s because\u00a0it resisted. And one of the tools of resistance used by our ancestors when there was barely anything here, was the\u00a0mutir\u00e3o<\/em>. And the\u00a0mutir\u00e3o\u00a0<\/em>isn’t just about bringing improvements or cleaning, it’s a recovery of our history. Recovery of\u00a0the community spirit. Of solidarity, mutual support. So long live the mutir\u00f5es<\/em>! Long live Babil\u00f4nia! Long live this new moment we’re living.”<\/p>\n

The other principal threat the Association has\u00a0identified to tackle is the seemingly arbitrary and drastic price increases by the electric utility\u00a0Light<\/a>. This has been a frequent complaint across favelas occupied by Pacifying Police Units<\/a>\u00a0(UPPs), and when investigated, RioOnWatch<\/em> found “worrying evidence of systematic irregularities and abuses on its part<\/a>.”\u00a0With prices going up 100% in a month<\/a>, Andr\u00e9 labeled the situation as a \u201cmonthly robbery\u201d and demanded an explanation.<\/p>\n

Long-term resident of Babil\u00f4nia Alberto Antonio believes that Chapa Amarela could provide a new start for the Resident\u2019s Association and hopes that its members can \u201chelp the community breathe, so that the community becomes safer and is open to dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas The Chapa Amarela\u00a0campaign ticket\u00a0won the Neighborhood Association elections on April 26 in the community of Babil\u00f4nia, in Rio\u2019s South Zone, with 394 votes. A total of 754 residents voted, choosing between […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":22674,"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":[1290,1268,1271,1284,329,1329],"tags":[1448,219,1102,779,756,595,221,783,65,282,129,202,485,197,218,618,10,156],"writer":[1564],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-civilsociety","8":"category-favelaculture","9":"category-favelaqualities","10":"category-interviews-profiles","11":"category-solutions","12":"category-by-international-observers","13":"tag-favelasareassets","14":"tag-collective-action","15":"tag-community-leader-profile","16":"tag-community-leaders","17":"tag-community-organizing","18":"tag-elections","19":"tag-favela-culture","20":"tag-favela-nao-se-cala","21":"tag-gentrification","22":"tag-housing","23":"tag-leadership","24":"tag-leme","25":"tag-light-electricity","26":"tag-morro-da-babilonia","27":"tag-mutirao","28":"tag-neighborhood-association","29":"tag-real-estate-speculation","30":"tag-south-zone","31":"writer-brooke-parkin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22424","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\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22424"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=22424"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=22424"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=22424"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=22424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}