{"id":39154,"date":"2017-10-17T11:16:02","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T14:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=39154"},"modified":"2020-03-07T21:17:11","modified_gmt":"2020-03-08T00:17:11","slug":"the-reciclacao-project-redefavelasustentavel-profile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=39154","title":{"rendered":"ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o\u2014RecyclAction\u2014in Prazeres #SustainableFavelaNetwork [PROFILE]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Initiative<\/strong><\/span>: RecyclAction (ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o)
\nContact<\/strong><\/span>:\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Email<\/a>
\nYear Founded<\/strong><\/span>: 2013
\nCommunity<\/strong><\/span>: Morro dos Prazeres, Santa Teresa
\nMission<\/strong><\/span>: To orient human beings towards a different, more conscious way of seeing the environment through environmental education and recycling.
\nPublic Events<\/strong><\/span>: Recycling workshops, environmental education classes for all ages, open breakfasts to discuss current issues and solutions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o<\/a>\u00a0or RecyclAction program began in 2013 in the\u00a0Morro dos Prazeres<\/a>\u00a0favela at the very top of the Santa Teresa neighborhood to engage residents through environmental education<\/a>\u00a0with recycling in order to build awareness of and improve the community’s\u00a0environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o was launched by the community-based organization Preven\u00e7\u00e3o Realizada com Organiza\u00e7\u00e3o e Amor\u2014PROA<\/a> (Prevention Realized Through Organization and Love).<\/p>\n

PROA broadly focuses on health<\/a> issues, including preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and sensitizing the community to health through education. As one of PROA’s initiatives, ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o naturally also focuses on people’s physical wellbeing. It arose from the need to deal with the accumulation of uncollected garbage<\/a> around the favela. Uncollected trash led to the 2010 tragedy in which a\u00a0landslide caused in part by accumulated debris on the hill, killed more than 30 people<\/a> and damaged structures. Members of the community decided to take action to prevent this from happening again. In 2011, a coalition of activist groups, NGOs including UNICEF<\/a> and CEDAPS, and young residents of the community started an initiative to map\u00a0the presence and risks of trash deposits<\/a> in a set of ten favelas.<\/p>\n

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ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o encourages designs made from recycled materials.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From that experience, a group of 25 youth from Prazeres<\/a> decided they needed to start an initiative to raise awareness about trash<\/a>, focusing on its production, its risks, and how to dispose of it. While searching for inspiration they realized it was hard to find organizations working with environmental education. All the organizations they encountered were dealing with the collection of trash and cleaning to improve sanitation, curing only the effects of the accumulation of garbage rather than working on its underlying cause\u2014limited environmental awareness.<\/p>\n

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The Prazeres favela.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From this discovery, Prazeres resident Cris dos Prazeres explains that the group of young residents arrived at \u201cthe idea of working with education with a new approach, thinking about the people living [in the community] rather than at an abstract general level. Thinking about the social power, building something that was from within the favela… and looking at all the challenges of the urban environment [there].”<\/p>\n

As one of the founders of ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o, she defines the initiative as \u201ca social technology that orients human beings towards a different, more conscious way of seeing the environment, always from within [the favela] to the outside.”\u00a0With education as their primary activity, the ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o team strives to raise people’s awareness of being an active part of the environment surrounding them, and to build incentives to take care of it as something that belongs to them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Since its founding, ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o has organized meetings, public talks,\u00a0and open coffee mornings in public spaces in Prazeres to discuss ideas, challenges, and next steps. It also distributes flyers with educational or\u00a0positive messages around the community, like the one pictured to the right which reads: “The trash you throw on the ground doesn’t talk, but it says a lot about you!”<\/p>\n

The initiative’s three-pronged approach to dealing with waste is based on the three R’s: reducing, reusing and recycling. The team set up forty eco-bags at “eco points<\/a>” around the favela for residents to throw away their trash. The huge eco-bags are emptied daily and the contents are separated into recyclable and non-recyclable materials<\/a>\u00a0each to be sent to the right destination. ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o also holds workshops for people to learn how to repurpose materials by transforming them into objects that they can then sell or use rather than throwing them away, and thus adding a second life to the product. Participants in the workshops learn it is possible to save and even earn money from these activities.<\/p>\n

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Eco-bag in Prazeres.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another member of the team, Orlando Dato, recalls that in ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o’s early days residents would see the participating youth running tirelessly up and down the favela picking up trash, cleaning up the place all day long. This enthusiasm and belief in change eventually influenced other community members, who slowly but naturally started contributing and throwing their waste into the ecobags. Cris dos Prazeres explains: \u201cYou have to set the example, you have to show people that you believe in this and that they too can believe in it.”<\/p>\n

In addition to leading by example, however, the team also leads direct educational initiatives, teaching in schools to instill environmental consciousness in daily habits from childhood. They started educational programs in schools around the city and have collaborated with universities, even abroad in the United States. Through education they challenge apathetic tendencies. Team members reflected that the government’s apparent lack of care<\/a> for sanitation<\/a> and environmental health in favelas has been adopted by some favela residents who don\u2019t see the value of caring about their collective living spaces themselves. Therefore, ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o works to build a relationship between residents and the spaces surrounding them, to encourage them to consider those spaces their own and worthy of value.\u00a0Dato explains that \u201cthe knowledge that ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o shares is to create a change, and this is why ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o is not just a project but a durable program, because a project has a limited timeframe, while this change has to be forever.”<\/p>\n

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ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3os eco-bag deposit in Prazeres.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o counts on three coordinators: two educators and one administrator. They manage to\u00a0collect materials from the 40 ecobags around the favela and send more than 1.5 tons of material per week to recycle.\u00a0They removed 140 tons of trash from an accumulation point that today has became a garden with medicinal plants, a point of pride for the community. A number of women from the neighborhood have approached the initiative asking how to repurpose material and requesting to participate in ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o workshops to produce objects to sell in markets. Members of the ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o team feel proud to say they’ve brought about a social change within the favela, suggesting that today more than ever, people care for their homes and collective living spaces, and cultivate plants on their windows. They suggest people are more aware of how caring for the environment can have a positive effect on the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n

ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o has faced many challenges over the years, among which is an ongoing risk of violence<\/a>. Cris dos Prazeres says that in 2015 a publication had declared Prazeres the cleanest favela in Rio de Janeiro, but due to the recent rise in violence<\/a> and shootings in the community in 2015 and 2016, clean-up operations became more difficult. She reflects, however, that \u201ceven though everything stopped working during this violent period, residents still put their trash in the ecobags, so ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o kept working, showing its value for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another challenge is the program’s financial sustainability. Currently the salaries of those working in the initiative are paid by the BRF Institute\u2014the corporate social responsibility arm of the global BRF food company<\/a>\u2014and they receive support through other partnerships as well. The objective is to reach financial sustainability in 2018.<\/p>\n

\"Cris<\/a>
Cris dos Prazeres<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cris dos Prazeres and Orlando Dato say they are \u201ccompletely positive about the successes and the future development of ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o.\u201d For them, ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o is achieving the social change they want to bring about, and they can see their work being appreciated and taken to heart by younger people they’ve influenced. They both also work actively in other projects in the community. Dos Prazeres is a member of PROA among other initiatives and Dato is president of the Residents’ Association, in addition to working as a sports instructor. Dos Prazeres says ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o changed her life, not only in the public sphere, but in her own house as well. She says that \u201cnow I waste less water in my house, save money, and have plants on my doorsteps.\u201d And seeing the achievements of ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o makes both leaders optimistic that more and more people will understand the importance of environmental education and engage in promoting it.<\/p>\n

Check out ReciclA\u00e7\u00e3o’s first three years of activities:<\/h3>\n