{"id":53344,"date":"2019-05-29T08:45:14","date_gmt":"2019-05-29T11:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=53344"},"modified":"2025-08-07T12:07:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T15:07:28","slug":"documentary-voz-ecoa-highlights-community-based-sustainability-projects-in-favelas-film-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=53344","title":{"rendered":"Documentary ‘Voz Ecoa’ Highlights Community-Based Sustainability Projects in Favelas [FILM REVIEW]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

On Saturday, May 11, Voz das Comunidades<\/a>,<\/em> a community-based newspaper and charitable organization from the favelas of Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a> in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone<\/a>, launched the short documentary<\/a> Voz Ecoa: Environment and Sustainability in the Favela<\/em>. Produced by Voz das Comunidades<\/em> and the Junior Enterprise at Rio’s Pontifical Catholic University (PUC-Rio), an interdisciplinary consulting company run by students, the documentary aims to highlight sustainability projects in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas<\/a> and increase collective environmental awareness within these communities.<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> with Voz das Comunidades<\/em>, Gabi Coelho, a lead collaborator on the project, said that the film\u2019s producers wanted to \u201cshow everyone the importance of working on an environmental agenda and changing our lives in favor of the environment… Just like we focus on public security in favelas for obvious reasons, like violence, we also have to focus on environmentalism.\u201d Coelho cited community gardens<\/a>, green spaces, and more efficiently constructed homes as potential benefits of environmentalism for favela residents.<\/p>\n

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The launch event<\/a> took place at Casa Voz<\/a>, which functions as both a community newsroom and co-working space in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o’s Morro do Adeus<\/a> favela. Coelho and the Empresa J\u00fanior staff briefly introduced the project and then played the eleven-minute documentary in its entirety to the crowd of favela residents, journalists, students, and community organizers in attendance.<\/p>\n

The favela residents featured in\u00a0Voz Ecoa<\/em> speak at length about the negative impact of garbage and inadequate sanitation in their communities. However, the film also serves as a tool to boost local sustainability projects like Eco Mar\u00e9,<\/a> led by Juliana Oliveira, a resident of Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/a> in Rio’s North Zone. By sorting and selling discarded recyclable materials, Eco Mar\u00e9 reduces the amount of waste that accumulates in the streets of the favela.<\/p>\n

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

According to Voz das Comunidades<\/em>, Eco Mar\u00e9 \u201crepresents how favela projects are powerful and can improve the reality<\/a> of the communities in which they are located.\u201d In Voz Ecoa<\/em>, Oliveira shares her experience as a community organizer and discusses the detrimental impacts of trash in Mar\u00e9, including poor sanitation<\/a> and lack of community pride in public spaces. Eco Mar\u00e9 works to tackle these problems, Oliveira explains. \u201cWe understand that education holds the power of transformation and so we organize discussions and conversations covering a range of environmental themes for the general public, including children and youth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interspersed with Oliveira\u2019s story,\u00a0Voz Ecoa <\/em>features clips of a biologist from PUC who argues that collective action is important for environmentalism because \u201cno organism, no living being is individual.\u201d The filmmakers also incorporated metaphorical narrative flourishes like clips of actors ripping plastic wrap off of their bodies to represent the community breaking free from suffocation by plastic and trash. Voz Ecoa<\/em> concludes with a call to action, compelling viewers to consider the question, \u201cIf we don\u2019t do anything now, what will become of the environment?\u201d and emphasizes that because all humans inhabit the same planet regardless of which region they live, the \u201cenvironment of the favela is also your environment\u201d and thus deserves equal protection and consideration.<\/p>\n

Following the screening, Andr\u00e9 Trigueiro, a journalist and postdoctoral scholar in environmental management at PUC, led a conversation on the environment and sustainability in favelas. Trigueiro emphasized the ties between sustainability and other issues like public health, security, cost of living, and sanitation. \u201cYou can\u2019t talk about sustainability without also talking about quality of life,\u201d he told the audience.<\/p>\n

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Recalling an encounter with a community leader in Rocinha<\/a>, located in Rio’s South Zone<\/a>, who lined his roof with reflective milk cartons to cool his home, Trigueiro praised simple, locally-sourced sustainability projects. Using collected rainwater to “clean windows, water their gardens, and clean Ubers and taxis,” said Trigueiro, is another easy way to conserve resources. \u201cThe environment starts with people,\u201d said Trigueiro, and favela residents should know that they deserve clean streets, higher quality of life, and green spaces.<\/p>\n

Trigueiro suggested that environmental education could prove key to improving trash collection and environmental action in favelas and posited that children may be able to teach their parents<\/a> \u201cnot to throw trash onto the street.\u201d He also encouraged residents to approach littering neighbors and chide them for their irresponsible environmental behavior.<\/p>\n

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

However, some favela residents in attendance disagreed with this method and worried that parents would not be receptive to their children reprimanding them, or that residents would be risking their personal security by approaching unknown people on the street to tell them to pick up their waste. Trigueiro and the participants ultimately concluded that changes to environmental consciousness in favelas must be systemic in nature and that other social and political issues in favelas like Complexo do Alem\u00e3o, such as public security, must also be treated as environmental problems.<\/p>\n

Voz Ecoa<\/em> will ultimately be shown to schoolchildren and used as an educational tool by community advocacy organizations in favelas across the city. The documentary will be screened at the Museum of Tomorrow and in other favelas in Rio, Belo Horizonte, and S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas On Saturday, May 11, Voz das Comunidades, a community-based newspaper and charitable organization from the favelas of Complexo do Alem\u00e3o in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone, launched the short documentary Voz […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":188,"featured_media":53471,"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":[1294,1288,1333,1334,329,452,1329],"tags":[2405,756,258,280,32,397,474,385,2436,602,386,1298,107,1845,1577,37,1661,12,535,471,692,1843,1140],"writer":[2948,2936],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-53344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-communitymedia","8":"category-highlight","9":"category-event-reports","10":"category-reviews","11":"category-solutions","12":"category-rio20","13":"category-by-international-observers","14":"tag-community-garden","15":"tag-community-organizing","16":"tag-community-solution","17":"tag-complexo-da-mare","18":"tag-complexo-do-alemao","19":"tag-education","20":"tag-environment","21":"tag-environmental-education","22":"tag-environmental-justice","23":"tag-film","24":"tag-trash","25":"tag-green-space","26":"tag-health","27":"tag-media","28":"tag-morro-do-adeus","29":"tag-north-zone","30":"tag-puc","31":"tag-rocinha","32":"tag-sanitation","33":"tag-sustainability","34":"tag-trash-collection","35":"tag-voz-das-comunidades","36":"tag-waste-management","37":"writer-emma-bergman","38":"writer-rachel-mucha"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53344","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\/188"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81323,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53344\/revisions\/81323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/53471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53344"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=53344"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=53344"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=53344"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=53344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}