{"id":22616,"date":"2015-06-14T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2015-06-14T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=22616"},"modified":"2015-08-15T15:24:09","modified_gmt":"2015-08-15T18:24:09","slug":"community-in-praca-seca-shows-how-small-green-actions-make-a-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=22616","title":{"rendered":"Community in Pra\u00e7a Seca Shows How Small Green Actions Make a Difference"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Residents and\u00a0activists in the S\u00e3o Jos\u00e9 Oper\u00e1rio<\/a> community, home to approximately 6,500 people in the Pra\u00e7a Seca<\/a> area of Rio\u2019s West Zone<\/a>,\u00a0celebrated World Environment Day<\/a> on June 3. The event provided a space for residents to reflect on environmental issues in their community and\u00a0more broadly.<\/p>\n

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

The environmental action day, held in a local church in S\u00e3o Jos\u00e9 Oper\u00e1rio, was organized by community leader Bruno Lima. Bruno is a member of Rio’s Commission for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (CJPIC). He spoke about\u00a0how environmental action fits into the CJPIC\u2019s aims. \u201cWe could describe it as \u2018human ecology\u2019 which relates to respecting the rights and dignity of all people, especially the poor, who are always the biggest victims of social injustice, environmental disasters, government inaction and social exclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The day was kicked off with an ecological themed mass, with about a hundred participants, followed by activities for all ages. The most popular was a kids\u2019 competition, where two teams competed in a range of ecological tasks, from gathering the most recyclable waste from the community to writing songs with an environmental theme. Some of the recyclable material collected by the kids was\u00a0later\u00a0used to create costumes and a mascot for each team\u2013a snake and an alligator.<\/p>\n

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

Wellington Domingues was responsible for overseeing the kids\u2019 activities. \u201cWe have to preserve our environment, especially by raising awareness among the children,\u201d he said, describing how encouraging the children to collect recyclable material helped them \u201csee how it can all be reused.\u201d<\/p>\n

The children also heard senior residents talk about how garbage issues<\/a> were managed when they were kids. Several residents complained that garbage continues to be a pressing issue in the community, due to the lack of public waste\u00a0collection there. Bruno explained that \u201can appropriate place for residents to throw their garbage\u00a0is necessary for the well-being of our neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Edson Pereira Marciano, a senior resident who is part of an environmental activism group called Grupo Pau Brasil, explained the importance of raising awareness of\u00a0environmental issues, especially among the young. He said: \u201cWhen we preserve the area we live in, we are preserving life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edson is part of a new project to collect and recycle used cooking oil in the community. Residents are invited to save their used oil and bring it to church, where the resale proceeds are distributed between\u00a0religious and environmental work in the community.<\/p>\n

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

One of the organizers of the event\u00a0was Dami\u00e3o Duarte, who also works as an environmentalist in the Ministry of Health. He described the ecological action day as a \u2018first step\u2019 for raising environmental awareness, even though he regretted that participation wasn’t as high as hoped, due to recent violence in the area. He hopes that events like this\u00a0will stimulate discussion around actions to re-green favelas and the city of Rio in general, which he described as over-concretized.<\/p>\n

Bruno agreed, stating the need \u201cto awaken the fight for public policies that promote sustainable development<\/a> and that contribute to the environmental education of the population.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> for more photos of the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas Residents and\u00a0activists in the S\u00e3o Jos\u00e9 Oper\u00e1rio community, home to approximately 6,500 people in the Pra\u00e7a Seca area of Rio\u2019s West Zone,\u00a0celebrated World Environment Day on June 3. The event provided […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":22617,"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":[1290,1333,329,452,1329],"tags":[756,258,474,385,386,388,1086,471,692,1140,21,1663],"writer":[1596],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22616","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-rio20","11":"category-by-international-observers","12":"tag-community-organizing","13":"tag-community-solution","14":"tag-environment","15":"tag-environmental-education","16":"tag-trash","17":"tag-recycling","18":"tag-sao-jose-operario","19":"tag-sustainability","20":"tag-trash-collection","21":"tag-waste-management","22":"tag-west-zone","23":"tag-world-environment-day","24":"writer-sarah-jacobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22616","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\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22616"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=22616"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=22616"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=22616"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=22616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}