{"id":35619,"date":"2017-03-27T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=35619"},"modified":"2020-08-07T14:03:34","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T17:03:34","slug":"tijuca-forest-community-rallies-against-masked-eviction-through-denial-of-electricity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=35619","title":{"rendered":"Tijuca Forest Community Rallies Against ‘Masked’ Eviction Through Denial of Electricity"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

An energetic crowd met on Saturday, March 25 to show support for the community of Vila H\u00edpica<\/a>, situated within the Tijuca National Park in Alto da Boa Vista<\/a>. Three years ago, the Park\u2019s administration decided to\u00a0cut the community\u2019s access to the power grid<\/a>\u00a0leaving residents without power. According to two residents of H\u00edpica, Lucy da Cantara and Maria Teruz, each family in the community used to pay R$90 per month when\u00a0the Park sent them billing statements but three years ago, the Park stopped sending these statements and shortly thereafter cut their power. The administration has maintained that electricity was cut in order to improve the power grid but residents have noticed that others including local businesses maintain access to the power grid, while they are left to live in darkness<\/a>. Supporters are convinced that the Park\u2019s actions are an indirect way of trying to force residents<\/a> from their homes.<\/p>\n

Although residents of H\u00edpica have been meeting over the past three years to brainstorm how to best resist this passive eviction<\/a>, Saturday marked the first time they held a public rally to bring attention to the problem. According to Ot\u00e1vio Alves Barros<\/a>, president of the Residents and Friends Association of Alto da Boa Vista–as well as leader of his own community of Vale Encantado<\/a>, the eco-favela located near H\u00edpica–relations have been strained between H\u00edpica and the Tijuca National Park since the community\u2019s beginnings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nH\u00edpica was founded in the 1940s by employees of the Brazilian Equestrian Society (Sociedade H\u00edpica Brasileira)\u00a0whose headquarters were located in Alto da Boa Vista. After the Equestrian Society left the area in 1984, former workers remained in their housing and continued to build their community.<\/p>\n

Supporters, including representatives from other favelas that face or have lived through evictions, like Horto<\/a> and Vila Aut\u00f3dromo<\/a>, as well as members of Rio\u2019s city council gathered to learn about H\u00edpica\u2019s struggles and offer their solidarity. Residents of Horto spoke about the current state of their community, which is located on land administered by the Botanical Gardens. They noted that like H\u00edpica, Horto residents have also been treated like invaders and have been negatively affected by stereotypes<\/a> of favelas as drug and crime-ridden. Sandra Maria\u00a0from Vila Aut\u00f3dromo spoke about how the modest crowd represented the many people in favelas who are facing eviction or have already been removed from their homes and affirmed that the maintenance of Tijuca National Park is thanks to communities like H\u00edpica which have tasked themselves with taking care of the environment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nA theme reiterated by several speakers during the rally was the importance of raising awareness about H\u00edpica’s being denied electricity. Ot\u00e1vio, who is charged with overseeing eight small favelas within Alto da Boa Vista,\u00a0is aware of the difficult battle that Vila H\u00edpica faces. For him, the primary goal is to restore electricity to the community, but he added that if H\u00edpica is forced to move, that they should be guaranteed \u201cdignified\u201d housing.<\/p>\n

To help further publicize the issue, H\u00edpica is planning to hold weekly organizing meetings starting April 11 that will be open to the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas An energetic crowd met on Saturday, March 25 to show support for the community of Vila H\u00edpica, situated within the Tijuca National Park in Alto da Boa Vista. Three years ago, […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":35620,"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":[1293,1854,1288,1290,1333,1271,1503,336,1329],"tags":[490,756,1495,11,884,282,26,25,485,270,489,514,4,2383],"writer":[2374],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-housingwatch","9":"category-highlight","10":"category-civilsociety","11":"category-event-reports","12":"category-favelaqualities","13":"category-opportunities-to-support-favelas","14":"category-violations","15":"category-by-international-observers","16":"tag-alto-da-boa-vista","17":"tag-community-organizing","18":"tag-eviction-tactics-canceled-services","19":"tag-forced-evictions","20":"tag-horto","21":"tag-housing","22":"tag-housing-rights","23":"tag-human-rights","24":"tag-light-electricity","25":"tag-resistance","26":"tag-tijuca-forest","27":"tag-vale-encantado","28":"tag-vila-autodromo","29":"tag-hipica","30":"writer-jennifer-chisholm"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35619","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\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35619"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=35619"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=35619"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=35619"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=35619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}