{"id":23098,"date":"2015-07-21T09:00:44","date_gmt":"2015-07-21T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=23098"},"modified":"2015-08-15T14:14:46","modified_gmt":"2015-08-15T17:14:46","slug":"anti-eviction-activist-wins-election-in-indiana-favela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=23098","title":{"rendered":"Anti-Eviction Activist Wins Election in Indiana Favela"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

As Rio de Janeiro prepares for the\u00a0Olympic Games<\/a> in just over a year\u2019s time, a trend is emerging with community activists being elected to head Neighborhood Associations<\/a> in a number of favelas. Latest among them, Maria do Socorro was\u00a0elected president<\/a> of the Residents Association in favela\u00a0Indiana Tijuca<\/a> on June 7. Indiana is a small community of 600 people\u00a0 Rio\u2019s near\u00a0North Zone<\/a>. Maria do Socorro\u2019s election follows the\u00a0victory of Andr\u00e9 Constantine<\/a> in Babil\u00f4nia<\/a>; they are both members of the\u00a0Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala<\/a> movement and outspoken activists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Launching her candidacy at the last minute, Maria do Socorro pledged to commit the Association to fighting the ongoing threat of evictions<\/a>\u00a0in Indiana: \u201cOur fight is all of this. It is to say that we are poor but we also have rights<\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The new president makes clear that the Association will now become a tool for residents to fight against eviction, which have\u00a0long been threatening the community<\/a>\u00a0and have intensified since 2012. Located at the base of\u00a0Morro do Borel<\/a> in the middle-class\u00a0Tijuca neighborhood<\/a>, Indiana is considered an\u00a0area of risk<\/a>\u00a0by the City due to its location next to a river. The City wants to relocate the residents to a\u00a0Minha Casa Minha Vida<\/a> public housing project in Triagem, 7kmaway. Before 2012 six houses were demolished and 110 families removed, but a court injunction prevented further actions on the grounds that the City failed to provide sufficient justification for removing the community.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Long-term resident and community organizer In\u00eas Ferreira contests the allegations that Indiana is an area of risk and instead believes the eviction is due to \u201creal-estate speculation\u2014for another class of people to live here, because it is easy to expel favelados<\/i>.\u201d In\u00eas echoes a sentiment shared across Rio\u2019s favelas, and expressed by\u00a0Tavares Bastos<\/a> bar owner Bob Nadkarni, that the City is steadily working to clear residents out <\/span>\u201cone by one, thus opening the opportunity for real estate development<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newly elected Maria do Socorro is quick to emphasize that the fight against evictions\u00a0is very much alive: \u201cWe do not have anything that states Indiana will not be evicted in the future. We fought during the World Cup and now the Olympics are coming up.\u201d<\/p>\n

An experienced organizer, marching in the\u00a0mass protests of 2013<\/a> and regularly attending the\u00a0Popular Committee for the World Cup and Olympics<\/a>\u2019 meetings, Maria is making sure that her term exemplifies the organizing and activism needed to fight eviction. She says: \u201cI am going to involve people that really know what it is like to fight, what it is like to go to the street, what it is like to fight for their home.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Maria represents a significant contrast to the last president. After 12 years in power, residents complained of lack of engagement and support for their cause, which resulted in the establishment of a separate\u00a0Residents\u2019 Committee<\/a>,, \u201ccreated to look within the community, criticize the Association when it did bad things and be in favor when they did something good,\u201d explains Ant\u00f4nio Carlos, one of the founders of the Committee.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Committee is a proactive group of residents who have taken important steps to protect their community, including creating a community newspaper, organizing meetings, and developing an upgrading plan for the community in collaboration with students from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Malu, a student working on the project, explains it is \u201can urban upgrading<\/a> plan to show that it is viable for Indiana to stay put.\u201d Although a couple of houses are genuinely at risk, the plan is to preserve the community and \u201cto have these people relocated within the community itself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ant\u00f4nio Carlos explains that the Committee\u2019s purpose is \u201cto add to the fight. We are fighting for upgrading, for social rights.\u201d The Committee looks forward to the prospect of working with an association that will stand with residents and protect the community\u2014which it failed to do under previous leadership.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

With the Olympics just over a year away, the residents of Indiana see no quick resolution to their housing problems. They also complain about the lack of services and upgrades their community should have received. The Association bemoans the limited resources available and is trying “to find something that occupies the children, as well as donations for the residents.\u201d The leaders are\u00a0calling out for donations<\/a>\u00a0of anything that could help their office or their residents. For example, last week they bought 26 milk cartons to give to families in need.<\/span><\/p>\n

The firm distrust between residents and the City was only exacerbated by Mayor\u00a0Eduardo Paes<\/a>\u2019 last visit to Indiana in 2013 when he\u00a0promised there would be no more evictions<\/a>, but afterwards failed to halt threats and provide guarantees.<\/span><\/p>\n

To support Favela Indiana with donations, contact the Residents\u2019 Association here<\/a>\u00a0or Maria Do Socorro via Facebook<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas As Rio de Janeiro prepares for the\u00a0Olympic Games in just over a year\u2019s time, a trend is emerging with community activists being elected to head Neighborhood Associations in a number of […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":23346,"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":[1293,1668,1288,1290,1284,1503,329,1329],"tags":[9,756,272,595,783,11,282,26,883,129,1259,157,618,37,5,1292,210,10,270,1350,365],"writer":[1564],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-participationwatch","9":"category-highlight","10":"category-civilsociety","11":"category-interviews-profiles","12":"category-opportunities-to-support-favelas","13":"category-solutions","14":"category-by-international-observers","15":"tag-9","16":"tag-community-organizing","17":"tag-mayor-eduardo-paes","18":"tag-elections","19":"tag-favela-nao-se-cala","20":"tag-forced-evictions","21":"tag-housing","22":"tag-housing-rights","23":"tag-indiana","24":"tag-leadership","25":"tag-mega-events","26":"tag-minha-casa-minha-vida","27":"tag-neighborhood-association","28":"tag-north-zone","29":"tag-olympics","30":"tag-organizing","31":"tag-public-housing","32":"tag-real-estate-speculation","33":"tag-resistance","34":"tag-tijuca","35":"tag-zero-participation","36":"writer-brooke-parkin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23098","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=23098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23098"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=23098"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=23098"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=23098"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=23098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}