{"id":26244,"date":"2016-01-10T00:03:14","date_gmt":"2016-01-10T03:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=26244"},"modified":"2016-01-18T02:46:32","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T05:46:32","slug":"favelas-in-the-news-december-2015-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=26244","title":{"rendered":"Favelas In the News: December 2015 Digest"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The final month of 2015 offered\u00a0a moment to take stock of the state of affairs in Rio and Brazil before 2016, the Olympic year, began. With summaries of\u00a0human rights violations and analyses of international media coverage, alongside ongoing coverage\u00a0of key issues like\u00a0Vila Aut\u00f3dromo and continuing\u00a0violence against black favela residents, we’re ready to enter the\u00a0most critical year ever\u00a0for amplifying favela perspectives.\u00a0To help our readers digest the major news\u00a0and themes of the past month, we\u2019ve summarized the stories we published here on RioOnWatch<\/em> along with a few other must-reads in the media. Access all our monthly summaries\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and full digests here<\/a>.<\/h4>\n

Before entering 2016 and the culmination of\u00a0RioOnWatch<\/em>, a project Catalytic Communities started in 2010 to document the transformations taking place in Rio through the 2016 Olympic Games,\u00a0we looked back at 2015 with our\u00a0latest analysis of\u00a0the best and worst international reporting on Rio’s favelas<\/a>. Two of the excellent articles were from December itself:\u00a0a ground-breaking and highly visible feature\u00a0on Vila Aut\u00f3dromo in\u00a0TIME<\/em><\/a> and a story on\u00a0pre-Olympic\u00a0evictions in\u00a0Vice<\/em><\/a>, both of which the CatComm<\/a> team was thrilled to support.<\/p>\n

Our own coverage of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo included\u00a0an analysis of the escalating and utterly oppressive pressures mounting<\/a>\u00a0as\u00a0the City grapples with the short timeframe they have to\u00a0pressure residents they have previously promised could stay. We covered the\u00a0terrifying eviction story of Dona Mariza<\/a>, who was left homeless when her home was destroyed in October, and creative\u00a0resistance events that continue on a weekly basis in this relentless\u00a0community,\u00a0such as the #OcupaVilaAutodromo cultural festival<\/a>\u00a0and civil disobedience by residents as they came together to\u00a0work\u00a0on their long-awaited\u00a0daycare center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This month the Popular Committee on the World Cup and Olympics published their biggest and most extensive dossier<\/a> of human rights violations ahead of the Rio 2016 “Exclusion Games.”<\/a>\u00a0Over 22,059 families have now been removed from their homes across Rio. For human rights\u00a0like the right to\u00a0housing,\u00a0residents of Brazilian cities and judicial officials alike lack knowledge<\/a>\u00a0of favela residents’ hard-won legal rights.\u00a0During the same week as the dossier launch, hundreds of activists debated and some 50,000\u00a0people celebrated International Human Rights Day in Madureira<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Madureira was also the site of a powerful protest against the killings of black youth<\/a>, following police inexplicably killing five\u00a0youth<\/a> in Costa Barros. As a form of reflection on and resistance to ongoing violence, women in Caju and Manguinhos\u00a0mapped violence in their communities<\/a>. Some favela activists say a\u00a0focus on the struggle against\u00a0systemic violence\u00a0affecting black favela populations is one\u00a0reason behind low\u00a0favela resident\u00a0participation<\/a> in December’s\u00a0protests against the impeachment of President Rouseff.<\/p>\n

An\u00a0article voicing\u00a0outrage by\u00a0Alem\u00e3o activist-journalist Raull Santiago<\/a> argues for the importance of reporting on rights violations, like police violence, while also showing the positive side of favelas, which is an act of resistance in itself. The temporary shutdown of WhatsApp<\/a> in December\u00a0and the resulting\u00a0massive outrage (and humor) expressed<\/a> by\u00a0Brazilians of all backgrounds on social media underlined\u00a0the key role\u00a0of new Internet technologies and platforms in amplifying people’s voices.<\/p>\n

Also this month, the highly anticipated yet\u00a0controversial Museum of Tomorrow finally opened<\/a>\u00a0and an insightful CityLab<\/em> article<\/a>\u00a0tackled\u00a0the building’s complex symbolism in the Port region, critical to Afro-Brazilian heritage as the largest slave port in world history. Not too far from the museum, the Pedra do Sal quilombo and supporters celebrated ten years of recognition<\/a> of the quilombo’s\u00a0historical importance and the ongoing bid for recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage.<\/p>\n

And finally, residents of Vila Laboriaux and collaborators revived a vacant plot of land<\/a> with the aim to develop an edible urban forest for the community. This\u00a0revitalization\u00a0is one of several\u00a0sustainable development\u00a0and community improvement\u00a0projects\u00a0Vila Laboriaux residents are implementing, which is all the more remarkable given the government called for the community’s removal after landslides in 2010.<\/p>\n

Look out for our next summary of articles from January\u00a0as we enter the momentous Olympic year. For more information and links to favela news from the month, see our full Favela Digest for December\u00a02015<\/a> here. You can subscribe to receive the\u00a0Favela Digest straight to your inbox each month here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas The final month of 2015 offered\u00a0a moment to take stock of the state of affairs in Rio and Brazil before 2016, the Olympic year, began. With summaries of\u00a0human rights violations and […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":26248,"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":[1329],"tags":[1893],"writer":[1352],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-26244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-by-international-observers","8":"tag-digest","9":"writer-cerianne-robertson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26244","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\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26244"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=26244"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=26244"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=26244"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=26244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}