{"id":29709,"date":"2016-06-17T12:56:32","date_gmt":"2016-06-17T15:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=29709"},"modified":"2016-06-18T11:14:33","modified_gmt":"2016-06-18T14:14:33","slug":"vidigal-neighborhood-association-presidential-candidates-debate-ahead-of-sunday-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=29709","title":{"rendered":"Vidigal Neighborhood Association Presidential Candidates Debate Ahead of Sunday Election"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Yesterday evening, Thursday June 16, Vidigal<\/a> residents gathered at the square at the bottom of the favela in the South Zone<\/a> of Rio de Janeiro\u00a0to hear a discussion with candidates for president of the Vidigal\u00a0Neighborhood Association<\/a>.\u00a0It is the community’s second democratic election after the arrival of the Pacifying Police Unit (UPP) in 2012<\/a> and comes at critical moment as the favela deals with increasing pressures due to real estate speculation<\/a> and gentrification<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The debate had four parts: introductions, candidate-to-candidate questions, resident-to-candidate questions, and concluded with final words.<\/p>\n

The election for president of the Vidigal Neighborhood Association<\/a>\u00a0will be held Sunday, June 19 and there are seven chapas<\/em>, or political groups, in the running. Voters will get another chance to hear each group\u2019s platform at the final debate tonight, Friday, June 17th at 7pm.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t give importance to the democratic process and that is exactly where they have to pay attention because it has a direct impact on their daily lives,\u201d said Andr\u00e9 Mauricio Gosi, the current social and cultural director of the Vidigal Neighborhood\u00a0Association.<\/p>\n

All of the candidates agreed that the community\u2019s three most pressing issues were limited\u00a0transportation<\/a>, a need for better education<\/a>, and improvements to the family clinic. But each offered different approaches.<\/p>\n

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

The candidates for Chapa 1 were Romilson Vidigal for President and Rosanjela Reis for Vice President.\u00a0\u201cWe will not work alone, we do not want to work alone,\u201d said Reis. Both Vidigal and Reis expressed a strong alliance with the organization Grupo Novos Desafios<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapa 1 expressed\u00a0their plan\u00a0to improve Vidigal by making sure all resident voices are heard and aggregate all of the ideas and ideals of everyone in the community.<\/p>\n

Candidates for Chapa 2 were Deley Ferreira for President and Beto da Igreja for Vice President. \u201cChapa 2 is the only one that has all of its directors within the directory of the Neighborhood Association,\u201d said da Igreja. Ferreira and da Igreja said they plan to provide extracurricular activities for young people in the community beyond the existing Vila Ol\u00edmpica<\/a>. They believe that the family clinic should be expanded and want to meet resident demands for more child care.<\/p>\n

Chapa 3\u2019s presidential candidate is the founder of VDG Community TV<\/a>, Marta Alves. She\u00a0said her group\u2019s slogan is \u201cValuing Traditions\u201d and plans to focus on the community\u2019s art<\/a> and culture<\/a> by revitalizing the abandoned cultural center. Under the leadership of Chapa 3 the Neighborhood Association \u201cwould work with open doors and always together.\u201d Chapa 3 also wants to increase the number of preparatory courses for the university entrance exams, begin an animal adoption fair in Vidigal\u2019s main square, and partner with organizations to provide castration programs for animals.<\/p>\n

The candidate for Chapa 4 is Jonas Barcelos, or JB, who has been involved in the association for years. \u201cThe purpose of a Neighborhood Association\u00a0president is to be a manager of a community,\u201d said Barcelos.\u201cI promise to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sebasti\u00e3o Aleluia, the association\u2019s current vice president, is Chapa 5\u2019s presidential candidate and considered the continuation of the current Association, carrying the current directors with him with the exception of the current president, Marcelo da Silva, who is leaving to care for family matters. \u201cWe have to have the humility to admit that we haven’t\u00a0done everything, but we’ve advanced a lot. If we hadn\u2019t, how would I have the courage to look you in the eye and run for this position,\u201d said Aleluia. He has three main objectives: electricity<\/a>, garbage<\/a>, and traffic planning<\/p>\n

Neguinho do Gelo, running on Chapa 7, believes that \u201cwork and unity\u201d will bring change to Vidigal and wants the community to become economically self-sufficient and \u201cwithout any dependency on public services.\u201d Neguinho owns an ice factory, restaurants, and hostels within Vidigal, and hopes to create more jobs.<\/p>\n

The presidential candidate running on Chapa 6, Carlene Gomes, was unable to attend Thursday\u2019s debate. Voters can expect to see Gomes at the next debate today.<\/p>\n

Speaking after the debate, resident Juliana Pereira praised the event for being well organized and said: \u201cIt allowed us to form an idea of what mattered to each candidate… It was good because usually we only know the cadidates that are from the areas we live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The election will be held on Sunday June 19 between 9am and 5pm at the Almirante Tamandar\u00e9 School in Vidigal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas Yesterday evening, Thursday June 16, Vidigal residents gathered at the square at the bottom of the favela in the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro\u00a0to hear a discussion with candidates for […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":29710,"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":[1668,1288,1290,1333,1329],"tags":[756,504,479,595,386,65,485,618,1292,10,156,200,363],"writer":[2092,2095],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-29709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-participationwatch","8":"category-highlight","9":"category-civilsociety","10":"category-event-reports","11":"category-by-international-observers","12":"tag-community-organizing","13":"tag-culture","14":"tag-democracy","15":"tag-elections","16":"tag-trash","17":"tag-gentrification","18":"tag-light-electricity","19":"tag-neighborhood-association","20":"tag-organizing","21":"tag-real-estate-speculation","22":"tag-south-zone","23":"tag-transportation","24":"tag-vidigal","25":"writer-alejandra-oconnell","26":"writer-juliana-ritter"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29709","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\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29709"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=29709"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=29709"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=29709"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=29709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}