{"id":26989,"date":"2016-02-24T14:44:21","date_gmt":"2016-02-24T17:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=26989"},"modified":"2023-03-26T17:34:02","modified_gmt":"2023-03-26T20:34:02","slug":"communities-unite-against-water-privatization-in-south-zone-favelas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=26989","title":{"rendered":"Communities Unite Against Water Privatization in South Zone Favelas"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Around\u00a0100 people met at the base of Vidigal<\/a> on Wednesday, February 17 to voice their discontent with the state\u2019s impending\u00a0decision to privatize the water and sewage\u00a0management utility, CEDAE<\/a>, in the favela. Convened by the Vila Vidigal Neighborhood Association, the meeting not only brought together leaders from Vidigal, but also united leaders from a number of South Zone<\/a> favelas, including Santa Marta<\/a>, Rocinha<\/a>, and Tabajaras<\/a>. These other leaders came\u00a0to Vidigal by way of\u00a0the Community Union<\/a>, an inter-community association of leaders from over\u00a0thirty favelas formed in 2014 to advocate for better public policies<\/a>\u00a0in their communities. The meeting in Vidigal was one in a series of meetings the Community Union is conducting in favelas\u00a0throughout the South Zone on the possible\u00a0water privatization, and came following\u00a0meetings in Santa Marta and Morro dos Prazeres<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The community leaders claim that the privatization of CEDAE is happening first in favelas where\u00a0Pacifying Police Units (UPP)<\/a>\u00a0have been installed, and that it acts as a form of gentrification-facilitator, pushing residents out of their properties without official evictions<\/a>. This is particularly troubling since the UPP policy itself is already linked to price hikes and gentrification. Andr\u00e9 Santana from Morro do\u00a0Andara\u00ed<\/a> said, “My father’s struggle was against eviction. They successfully fought against many people being removed. And their fight will not be in vain.”<\/p>\n

While the claim that the privatization of CEDAE is only currently happening in these South Zone favelas is unconfirmed, community leaders\u00a0highlighted\u00a0that the\u00a0de facto<\/em> effect of increased utility bills has the potential to have a large\u00a0impact on low-income favela residents. In particular, they\u00a0emphasized how detrimental the privatization of the\u00a0Light<\/a>\u00a0electricity utility\u00a0has already been for the community.<\/p>\n

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

Community leaders from Vidigal described residents receiving monthly Light electricity bills<\/a> of\u00a0R$800, when many\u00a0make about that salary per month. Z\u00e9 Mario, president of the Santa Marta Neighborhood\u00a0Association, relayed a story of a man who had a bill of R$1198 and arrived at the association downtrodden, explaining, “I have to leave the favela.” Local activists produced\u00a0a\u00a0film about his case<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Such stories of abusive billing by Light<\/a>, and even more extreme cases, have been building since Light was privatized in 1996. A\u00a0study of\u00a0Light bills in Chap\u00e9u-Mangueira<\/a> carried out by Alexandre Mendes, a law professor at the Rio de Janeiro Pontifical Catholic University (PUC-Rio), found that “Light has used a strategy after the entrance of the UPPs to stabilize consumption ceilings in bills, and gradually raise them,” charging residents fixed rates that do not necessarily correspond with consumption.<\/p>\n

In the case of the water and sewage treatment services, as with electricity, there has already been some disconnect between consumption and cost. Before the UPPs were installed<\/a>, many residents\u00a0individually sourced water in informal, artisanal ways. Residents sourcing in this way\u00a0were accustomed\u00a0to water irregularities, but now in part due to the water crisis in Rio<\/a>, even CEDAE water services are irregular, despite\u00a0coming along with bills which\u00a0now threaten to rise with privatization.<\/p>\n

Sewage treatment services also suffer from irregularity under CEDAE. Santana explained at\u00a0the meeting on February 17 that Morro\u00a0do Andara\u00ed had been without sewage treatment services\u00a0for about two weeks, and that the CEDAE sewerage coordinator responsible for that community had posted an apology for the service gap on Facebook.<\/p>\n

There has been\u00a0some positive\u00a0news since the meeting:\u00a0it\u00a0has been ruled<\/a> that CEDAE can only charge\u00a0the fee for sewage treatment in cases where it indeed collects, treats, and sends sewage to its designated destination. If the ruling is properly implemented, this should help communities avoid fixed rate bills that are not tied to services provided, though it does not cap costs when services are adequately provided.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0speaking out against unreasonably high utility bills that do not correspond to usage, speakers at the meeting also stressed\u00a0the need to do away with the myth<\/a> that favela residents do not want to pay for water and other services, explaining instead that they just want to pay a fair price.<\/p>\n

Santana connected the possibility of a subsidized rate for favelas to the need for public investment in favelas overall:\u00a0“The favelas\u00a0need public policies, schools and hospitals.”<\/p>\n

With pacification, formalization of utility services has been touted as a form of social inclusion by public authorities, but integration into market-based services has often preceded investments in education<\/a> and health<\/a>. Alluding to the upcoming 2016 Rio Olympics<\/a>, vice-president of the Vila Vidigal Neighborhood Association, Sebasti\u00e3o Aleluia said, “The better\u00a0Olympics would be one of hospitals and schools [competing to be best].”<\/p>\n

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

Finally, community leaders called for broader civic engagement. Vila Vidigal Neighborhood Association president, Marcelo da Silva, asserted to the crowd: “This bill will arrive individually to each one of us. It’s not enough to complain at the bar, in line for the bus, the moto-taxi, on Facebook.” The leaders encouraged residents to come together before authorities take action. Santana reminded residents: “It’s good to remember that everything is politics<\/a>, from the price of your beer to the Light bill and when you’re watching your novela<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

The next steps are for meetings to continue in other\u00a0favelas that participate in the Community Union, and to potentially articulate collective direct action across these communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas Around\u00a0100 people met at the base of Vidigal on Wednesday, February 17 to voice their discontent with the state\u2019s impending\u00a0decision to privatize the water and sewage\u00a0management utility, CEDAE, in the favela. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":27059,"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":[1267,1668,1290,1333,335,1329],"tags":[371,525,219,779,756,258,842,1949,1950,65,485,376,618,1292,15,152,664,141,12,66,373,1403,156,784,2665,363,1140,370],"writer":[1946],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-26989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gentrificationwatch","8":"category-participationwatch","9":"category-civilsociety","10":"category-event-reports","11":"category-policies","12":"category-by-international-observers","13":"tag-cedae","14":"tag-chapeu-mangueira","15":"tag-collective-action","16":"tag-community-leaders","17":"tag-community-organizing","18":"tag-community-solution","19":"tag-debate","20":"tag-fair-pricing","21":"tag-favela-myth-dont-pay-bills","22":"tag-gentrification","23":"tag-light-electricity","24":"tag-morro-do-andarai","25":"tag-neighborhood-association","26":"tag-organizing","27":"tag-pacifying-police-unit","28":"tag-participation","29":"tag-prazeres","30":"tag-privatization","31":"tag-rocinha","32":"tag-santa-marta","33":"tag-sewerage","34":"tag-solution","35":"tag-south-zone","36":"tag-tabajaras","37":"tag-unity","38":"tag-vidigal","39":"tag-waste-management","40":"tag-water","41":"writer-anna-cash"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26989","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\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26989"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=26989"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=26989"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=26989"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=26989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}