{"id":23251,"date":"2015-08-10T09:00:37","date_gmt":"2015-08-10T12:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=23251"},"modified":"2016-06-04T23:50:27","modified_gmt":"2016-06-05T02:50:27","slug":"asa-branca-favela-welcomes-haitian-immigrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=23251","title":{"rendered":"Asa Branca Favela Welcomes Haitian Immigrants"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The rise in Haitian immigration<\/a>\u00a0to Brazil has been hitting the headlines. According to figures from the Ministry of Work and Employment published by BBC Brasil<\/em><\/a>, the number of Haitian workers in Brazil rose from 814 in 2011 to 14,579 in 2013. Justice Minister Jos\u00e9 Eduardo Cardozo declared that Brazil currently emits more than 100 visas a month<\/a> to Haitians.<\/p>\n

Thanks to a dynamic community leader<\/a>, one favela in Rio\u2019s West Zone<\/a> is reacting to an influx of Haitian immigrants in creative and inclusive ways.<\/p>\n

Home to 8,000 residents, over its 35 year history\u00a0Asa Branca<\/a>\u00a0has witnessed the dramatic growth of the surrounding region, now peppered with\u00a0huge developments including the main site of\u00a0the 2016 Olympic Games<\/a>. Skyscrapers loom large over the community, which sits in between the newly-launched TransCarioca Bus Rapid Transit line<\/a> on one side and the still-in-construction TransOl\u00edmpica BRT line on the other.<\/p>\n

Asa Branca\u2019s Residents Association<\/a> is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary this year, under the long-term leadership of its popular president Carlos Alberto Costa<\/a>, known as Bezerra. Bezerra\u2019s latest mission is to help improve the integration of the community\u2019s approximately 150 Haitian immigrants, working in what Bezerra describes as the \u201cboom in civil construction\u201d in the Olympic Park region.<\/p>\n

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

Bezerra saw Haitian immigration as an opportunity to increase integration in the community: \u201cI said to myself: they\u2019re here! They\u2019re residents too. So we need to find out what they need.”<\/p>\n

In May, the Residents Association welcomed Haitians, Brazilians and organizations working with foreigners in Rio for a traditional feijoada <\/em>meal. \u201cIt was good! They came, they participated…we had a good chat,\u201d Bezerra said.<\/p>\n

He has recently joined forces with a Haitian resident to offer French and English classes in the community. Dieuseul Duclosil gave his first lesson to a handful of keen students on July 12\u00a0and Bezerra said he knew dozens of other residents interested in enrolling. He hopes this initiative will expand to include Portuguese classes for Haitians and has plans for a Haitian-Brazilian ball, with music from the two cultures.<\/p>\n

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

Bezerra described how the classes came about: \u201c[Dieuseul] has taught English and French before. And currently he\u2019s unemployed… This is a way for the Association to help him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dieuseul liked the idea. He said: \u201cIt\u2019s good to integrate a nation that\u2019s new here\u2026 [Bezerra] is a very interesting person, because he embraces everyone here. It\u2019s not what you give someone that makes you a good person. It\u2019s the way you think, the way you look at other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

For a favela that owes its conviviality\u00a0and development to a dedicated community of long-term residents<\/a>, the new Haitian neighbors represent a totally different way of living, based on years of migration. After the 2010 earthquake<\/a>\u00a0which devastated his home country, Dieuseul moved from Haiti to Ecuador, where he spent two years before moving to Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil, eventually moving to Rio in search of a hotter climate. \u201cI said to myself: I\u2019ve got to find a city where it\u2019s hot, so I can live well!\u201d he joked. He had been working in construction in Rio for over a year before being made redundant.<\/p>\n

Other Haitian immigrants have similar stories of migration across several countries. Frisno Merat spent eight years in the Dominican Republic before moving to Brazil. He said he feels\u00a0at home in Asa Branca: \u201cLife is calm here, we don\u2019t have problems with anyone here.\u201d<\/p>\n

His friend Lebien Prince agreed, showing off his young daughter, proud that she speaks good Portuguese. \u201cIt\u2019s all good here, thank God, because right now I\u2019m working. My wife\u2019s here with me and she\u2019s working too.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

The language teaching project is just one example of Asa Branca\u2019s history of collectivity<\/a>. The community built many of the services it uses today, including its\u00a0sewerage system, created by residents some twenty years ago. \u201cI\u2019m proud of it; we\u2019re proud of it,\u201d said Bezerra. \u201cAnd it still functions well. It was a sewerage system built for some thousand residents and now there are 8,000 of us, so it\u2019s a bit complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, Bezerra complains that the collective spirit in the favela is dwindling as he thinks residents have\u00a0become more focused on self-improvement above community improvement.<\/p>\n

He is trying to use his position as Residents Association veteran to motivate a new generation of community leaders and encourage participation and solidarity. With this in mind, he\u2019s been holding a debate series, encouraging residents to come together to discuss issues such as racism<\/a>, sexism\u00a0and women’s issues<\/a>, and the reduction in the age of criminal responsibility<\/a>. \u201cI know lots of people who are capable of doing a better job than me. You have to motivate\u00a0these people, provoke them!\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Asa Branca\u2019s Haitian residents know that their existence in the community depends on a source of employment, which is not guaranteed. In Frisno\u2019s words, \u201cyou have to grab the work where you can find it,\u201d suggesting that his next step might be S\u00e3o Paulo. And for Dieuseul, he says most Haitians want to return to their country. \u201cWe work, save money, to go back to our country. There\u2019s no place you feel better than the place you were born.\u201d<\/p>\n

But while they\u2019re living in Asa Branca, Bezerra will look for ways to include them in the community, \u201cso they can have the dignity that human beings deserve, in a country they don\u2019t know well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas The rise in Haitian immigration\u00a0to Brazil has been hitting the headlines. According to figures from the Ministry of Work and Employment published by BBC Brasil, the number of Haitian workers in […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":6232,"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":[1288,1290,1268,1271,1284,329,1329],"tags":[9,27,606,219,756,258,504,397,1735,1734,309,576,218,618,5,520,1403,21],"writer":[1596],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-highlight","8":"category-civilsociety","9":"category-favelaculture","10":"category-favelaqualities","11":"category-interviews-profiles","12":"category-solutions","13":"category-by-international-observers","14":"tag-9","15":"tag-asa-branca","16":"tag-brt","17":"tag-collective-action","18":"tag-community-organizing","19":"tag-community-solution","20":"tag-culture","21":"tag-education","22":"tag-english-classes","23":"tag-haiti","24":"tag-immigration","25":"tag-integration","26":"tag-mutirao","27":"tag-neighborhood-association","28":"tag-olympics","29":"tag-solidarity","30":"tag-solution","31":"tag-west-zone","32":"writer-sarah-jacobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23251","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=23251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23251"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=23251"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=23251"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=23251"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=23251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}