{"id":41563,"date":"2018-02-05T06:00:10","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T09:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=41563"},"modified":"2018-02-07T15:01:11","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T18:01:11","slug":"project-seeks-a-new-generation-of-politicians-from-rios-favelas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=41563","title":{"rendered":"Project Seeks a New Generation of Politicians from Rio\u2019s Favelas"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

For the original article in Portuguese by L\u00edgia Mesquita published by BBC Brasil click here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

In 20 years, do you see yourself being mayor of Rio de Janeiro?<\/p>\n

High school senior Larissa Vieira had never thought about that possibility when she heard the question. The dream of the 17-year-old\u2014resident of the Vila Kennedy<\/a>\u00a0favela in Rio de Janeiro’s\u00a0West Zone<\/a> region of\u00a0Bangu<\/a>\u2014is to be an actress. And she strives to achieve her dreams by taking free classes in a community space<\/a> sustained by the sheer determination of her teacher and those that attend to it.<\/p>\n

Vieira had never talked about politics<\/a>. She didn\u2019t even really understand what it meant in practice.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t know that \u201ca person from the community could be there [in city government].\u201d And her perception of politicians was that \u201cthey only know how to steal<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, her view is that reality could be something different.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t even know what I could do to change things. Now I\u2019m beginning to learn. I hope this goes back to being a better place,\u201d she says, referring to the community where she lives.<\/p>\n

The teenager describes having learned a lot about politics\u2014including that it\u2019s something \u201cthat you do on a daily basis, with little actions or even engaging deeper\u201d\u2014from one night of conversation at Carol’s home, a resident of the same community who Vieira didn\u2019t previously know.<\/p>\n

She learned from her theater<\/a> group that there would be a chat there about the community\u2019s issues and other topics and decided to go see what it was about.<\/p>\n

Now, the daughter of a mechanic and a radiology technician at a public hospital imagines herself being a politician one day and, who knows, maybe even running the city where she lives.<\/p>\n

Politics on the agenda<\/h3>\n

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

The informal meeting was part of the TodoJovem\u00c9Rio (EveryYouthIsRio) festival<\/a>, an event that took debates on political and social issues to 40 homes of youth from Rio\u2019s peripheral areas, favelas, and suburbs, with one of its goals being to train new leaders.<\/p>\n

The festival, which wrapped up on January 27, was organized by the Youth Networks Agency<\/a>, which\u00a0created a methodology to help youth<\/a>\u00a0develop their own solutions<\/a> for the favelas where they live. The Networks’ methodology has already been exported to the United Kingdom where it is used in projects in London and Manchester<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For the first time since it was created in 2011, the Agency decided to change the focus of its work and talk about politics, at a moment in which Brazil is experiencing huge polarization<\/a> and does not see new leaders emerging.<\/p>\n

Polarization that Vieira, for example, sees and disapproves of. She had already heard about the political right and left and had no idea how to “define this” in terms of ideologies but thinks there are “too many labels.” “People like to say this to divide people. And it\u2019s useless. You have to think about what the people need, not continue to separate them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Engagement<\/h3>\n

The project coordinators, mostly youth who came from other jobs at the Agency, demonstrated how people can take part politically in life in society. They taught, for example, how to contact the city government to request effective improvements for communities (lighting, equipment repair) and also advised how to occupy public space<\/a> to reach more people, be it through art or some other activity.<\/p>\n

For cultural producer, writer, and director Marcus Faustini, founder of the Youth Networks Agency, before trying to strengthen one single political movement, it is essential to help politics itself gain space in society, allowing multiple movements to emerge at the same time. And with them, diversity grows. \u201cWe are preparing these youth so they are respected and heard in the next election cycle<\/a>,\u201d he tells BBC Brasil<\/em>, as someone who also grew up in a peripheral neighborhood.<\/p>\n

He hopes that by the end of the year 200 houses in peripheral regions will be engaged with this proposal for debating and doing local politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted residents to open up their houses because homes are also political spaces. It\u2019s a place of subjectivity. Last year the most important house in Rio was [musician] Caetano Veloso\u2019s in front of the beach [where a lot of politicians like former presidential candidates Marina Silva and Ciro Gomes, among others, gathered to talk with artists and intellectuals]. If his house is important, why isn\u2019t a house in the periphery important? If politicians go to people\u2019s houses in Rio\u2019s South Zone<\/a> [the richest region in the city], why not go to houses in peripheral areas?\u201d Faustini asks.<\/p>\n

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

Two decades until the election<\/h3>\n

Some movements that arose in recent years try to put politics on the agenda and from there seek to launch a possible new name to dispute elections. That\u2019s the case of Agora! (Now!), for example, which considered launching TV presenter Luciano Huck<\/a> as a presidential candidate for 2018. But most of these movements are made up of people with more purchasing power, like business owners or lawyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe discussion about Brazil’s future political leaders can\u2019t be restricted to the middle class. If we want a renewal, we also need to look to peripheral areas,\u201d Faustini says.<\/p>\n

For Faustini, thinking about beginning to train leaders now so that they are feasible candidates in 20 years is not too long a timeframe.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re proposing is very serious. We are stimulating a desire so that marginalized communities want to have someone becoming mayor of Rio in 20 years. This requires a process of construction\u2014it\u2019s not just saying \u201cI\u2019ll go\u201d now, because they\u2019ll say you\u2019re coffee and milk,” he reflects [using a colloquial expression for someone who is too young or inexperienced to participate effectively].<\/p>\n

Until then, he says, these young people could also create new parties, because participants in the TodoJovem\u00c9Rio meetings did not fully identify with the existing parties<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How it works<\/h3>\n

Holding a poster that says \u201cTrustworthy Leaders, Representative of the Favela<\/a>,\u201d Rebecca Vieira, 26, spoke to a group of young people, all standing up in a house in the favela of Batan<\/a>, in West Zone’s\u00a0Realengo<\/a>\u00a0region.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sent messages through WhatsApp, through Facebook Messenger, I called, I bothered people. And this theme [written on the poster] was the one that came up the most,\u201d the publicity student explained. \u201cWhat does it mean? Often we don’t know how to have a conversation with those people who are leaders of the favela, who are part of the Residents’ Association<\/a>.\u201d Afterwards, she asked the group to identify the advantages and disadvantages of a mayoral candidate from a peripheral community, like them.<\/p>\n

Among the positive points, the youths said that a candidate from the community would actually understand what the problems for peripheral areas are and would be able to help solve them. It would also be someone who would speak the same language<\/a> as them, who would look at those areas more carefully. Curiously, they also said one’s roots in a poorer region could be a negative point because, some of them suggested, the candidate would suffer prejudice<\/a> and could become fascinated by power\u2014and corruption.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Vieira had already taken part in a Youth Networks entrepreneurship<\/a> project and thus was helping at the TodoJovem\u00c9Rio festival as a type of leader. Besides leading that whole session, she helped to select the houses that hosted the debates and called up people in the community.<\/p>\n

The creation of the festival was \u201cdaring,\u201d the student says, “because we live in a political moment in which people ‘meet’ on social media<\/a>, writing long posts, complaining, but no one effectively does anything to change anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

From her discussion group, some people have already come away with plans to dialogue with the Residents’ Association to see what needs to be done in the community. Others have ideas to occupy the streets of Batan with festivities carried out however possible.<\/p>\n

According to founder Faustini, the idea of the festival is to plant a seed so that young people become active in any way they can and want in their communities, and don\u2019t look with contempt at something important like politics.<\/p>\n

Change<\/h3>\n

Street vendor and rapper Bruno Souza, 17, lives in the Costa Barros<\/a> favela, close to Pavuna<\/a> in Rio’s North Zone<\/a>, and has always despised the idea of “politics,\u201d believing that it only involves \u201cthieves\u201d and that nothing will change.<\/p>\n

He heard about one of the festival’s debates through a friend and decided to go “see what it was” and learn if, indeed, he could do something to improve life in his community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it\u2019s hard to change things here\u2014an area of risk, the drug trafficking prevents a lot. There are no skate lanes for us to hang out in, we need to go to Madureira<\/a>. There are no pools for bathing. The only thing we have here is the shootings,” he says.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t risk imagining that one day he could work in something related to politics, but he thinks it\u2019s important that people from peripheral communities \u201center the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to be someone who came from the periphery, it\u2019s useless to elect another person up there [in city government] to change something they don\u2019t know. It has to be someone who’s here<\/a>, who knows what happens in our daily lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas For the original article in Portuguese by L\u00edgia Mesquita published by BBC Brasil click here.\u00a0 In 20 years, do you see yourself being mayor of Rio de Janeiro? High school senior […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":41565,"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":[1668,1288,1290,2242,329,1330],"tags":[1154,317,1044,779,1461,718,595,2211,129,35,618,37,152,1085,374,826,796,1403,2641,612,21,259],"writer":[2639],"translator":[2572],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-41563","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-democracy","11":"category-solutions","12":"category-translation","13":"tag-agencia-redes-para-juventude","14":"tag-bangu","15":"tag-batan","16":"tag-community-leaders","17":"tag-community-space","18":"tag-costa-barros","19":"tag-elections","20":"tag-favela-representation-in-politics","21":"tag-leadership","22":"tag-madureira","23":"tag-neighborhood-association","24":"tag-north-zone","25":"tag-participation","26":"tag-pavuna","27":"tag-politics","28":"tag-realengo","29":"tag-social-media","30":"tag-solution","31":"tag-swimming-pool","32":"tag-vila-kennedy","33":"tag-west-zone","34":"tag-youth","35":"writer-ligia-mesquita","36":"translator-julia-hara-medeiros"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41563","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=41563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41563"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=41563"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=41563"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=41563"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=41563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}