{"id":55634,"date":"2019-10-23T13:27:28","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T16:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=55634"},"modified":"2020-10-01T17:19:11","modified_gmt":"2020-10-01T20:19:11","slug":"muda-mare-environmental-education-and-urban-agriculture-in-complexo-da-mare-profile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=55634","title":{"rendered":"Muda Mar\u00e9: University Partnership for Environmental Education and Urban Agriculture in Mar\u00e9 Favelas [PROFILE]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

This article is part of a\u00a0<\/i>series of profiles of initiatives in Rio\u2019s Sustainable Favela Network<\/a><\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Initiative<\/span>:<\/strong> Muda Mar\u00e9 (“Mar\u00e9 Seeds of Change”)<\/em>
\nContact<\/strong><\/span>: <\/strong>Blog<\/a> |\u00a0Facebook<\/a> | Email<\/a><\/em>
\nYear Founded<\/span>:<\/strong> 2011<\/em>
\nCommunity<\/span>:<\/strong> Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/em>
\nMission<\/span>:<\/strong> To \u201cpromote, through the knowledge accumulated by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in the areas of Environmental Education and Agroecology, a transforming interaction with the Complexo da Mar\u00e9 community, while aiming to unite different segments of society, promote the exchange of information as well as the elaboration of collective action, and contribute to the sustainable development of Mar\u00e9.\u201d<\/em>
\nPublic Events<\/span>:<\/strong> Public classes, workshops, film screenings, and collaborative work projects<\/em>
\nHow to contribute<\/span>:\u00a0<\/strong>Participate in a workshop or volunteer to help out at a collaborative project<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For Ruth Os\u00f3rio de Lima, Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/a> has always been home. Born and raised in this complex of sixteen favelas in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone<\/a>, Os\u00f3rio calls Mar\u00e9 a “complete city”, where residents can find everything they need, from schools to supermarkets.<\/p>\n

While Os\u00f3rio’s earliest memories involve spending time with family and playing in the streets of Mar\u00e9<\/a>, she also remembers grim periods of gunfire and violence, and says that residents can become accustomed to such a reality. Likewise, says Os\u00f3rio, sanitation issues in Mar\u00e9 become accepted as normal. Since trash in the streets, open sewers, flooding of sewers due to a lack of proper drainage, and houses’ proximity to trash disposal sites afflict all community residents, they often go accepted as part of the status quo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Os\u00f3rio also notes that due to Mar\u00e9’s proximity to Rio\u2019s downtown, the area lacks green spaces. \u201cIt\u2019s a type of concrete jungle. There\u2019s only construction.” Growing up, she says, “There were no trees or recreational areas.\u201d While favelas often serve as a solution for those in need of housing<\/a>, Os\u00f3rio feels that many residents have been forced to give up green and natural spaces in order to find homes. \u201cIt\u2019s as if the people did not even have a right to a tree. People want to have trees. If you ask any person who lives in Mar\u00e9, they will say that they want green spaces, prettier spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

In the face of these challenges, Mar\u00e9 residents often support each other, working to improve their community. This spirit of solidarity inspired the creation of Muda Mar\u00e9<\/a>, a project<\/a> based out of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ<\/a>) focusing on environmental education and urban agriculture in the favelas of Mar\u00e9.<\/p>\n

In 2010, the Mar\u00e9-based community NGO Redes da Mar\u00e9<\/a> (Mar\u00e9 Development Networks) formed the initiative Mar\u00e9 Que Queremos<\/a> (the Mar\u00e9 We Want), resulting in the creation of the Resident Associations Forum (FAM), which meets monthly, gathering the presidents of Mar\u00e9’s 16 residents’ associations to plan projects aimed at improving local quality of life. In 2011,\u00a0 looking to aid the FAM in addressing environmental and health-based issues, three UFRJ students decided to start Muda Mar\u00e9 as a university extension project. For their first activity, Rua da Muda<\/a> (Seedling Street), Muda Mar\u00e9 collaborated with community members to plant seedlings along Sargento Silva Nunes Street in the community of Nova Holanda<\/a>. It was then that a teenage Os\u00f3rio first became involved with Muda Mar\u00e9, formally joining the organization in 2015. Now, as an engineering student at UFRJ herself, Os\u00f3rio is Muda Mar\u00e9’s most senior member, managing projects and integrating new members into the organization\u2019s framework.<\/p>\n

Muda Mar\u00e9 launched with the goal of strengthening the spirit of exchange between the university\u2014located just across the marsh on Ilha do Fund\u00e3o\u2014and Mar\u00e9. The seven student members of the initiative, including Os\u00f3rio, as well as their supervising UFRJ professor, all strive to build the partnership between UFRJ and Mar\u00e9. \u201cThe knowledge that is being produced within the university has to be exchanged with the people who live outside of it,” says Os\u00f3rio. “The extension project is for everyone to have access to what is being produced within [the university].\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Muda Mar\u00e9 often works in collaboration with Redes da Mar\u00e9, especially in the field of education. This collaboration includes teaching environmental education classes for children and youth enrolled in university preparatory courses at the Redes da Mar\u00e9 headquarters, as well as field courses designed to take students out of the classroom. These courses, which cover everything from biomes and waste management to water and energy, are catered to helping students better understand their classroom instruction as well as the relationship between humans and the environment.<\/p>\n

Muda Mar\u00e9 strives to approach these subjects through the perspective of residents, paying attention to specific issues currently facing the community and how residents are implementing solutions. Both in the classroom and in the field, members of Muda Mar\u00e9 emphasize that the environment is not simply an object to be examined. Os\u00f3rio believes she and her colleagues function more in the role of facilitators because the students in their classes already possess extensive knowledge of environmental topics.<\/p>\n

Besides leading environmental education courses and field classes, Muda Mar\u00e9 also collaborates with Redes da Mar\u00e9 on the Mar\u00e9 de Sabores<\/a> (Mar\u00e9 of Flavors) initiative, a semester-long gastronomy and gender course designed to allow local women to become certified as chefs and achieve financial autonomy. Since 2013, students from Muda Mar\u00e9 have taught workshops for Mar\u00e9 de Sabores dealing with food security, nutritional sovereignty, pesticides, and unconventional food plants (UFP, or PANC in Portuguese). The workshops also include a theoretical section focused on issues regarding the environment and nourishing the human body, as well as \u201cdemystifying eating habits\u201d such as vegetarianism, veganism, and entomophagy (consuming insects). Members of Muda Mar\u00e9 also lead women from Mar\u00e9 de Sabores on tours of the UFRJ campus, visiting university projects and spaces dedicated to agroecology.<\/p>\n

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

Outside the Redes da Mar\u00e9, Muda Mar\u00e9 has begun teaching environmental education classes at Jo\u00e3o Borges State High School. Located in a formerly abandoned building, the school was created by teachers and students who occupied the structure with a vision of fostering an environment dedicated to participatory education and collective knowledge. As at Redes, Muda Mar\u00e9 members teach classes and lead projects at Jo\u00e3o Borges High School, focusing on environmental education and environmental issues.<\/p>\n

Outside of Mar\u00e9, Os\u00f3rio and other members of Muda Mar\u00e9 are always involved in activities at UFRJ. At the university, Muda Mar\u00e9 is a member of the Agroecology Network<\/a> along with 17 other extension projects. As a network member, Muda Mar\u00e9 helped organize the Regional Conference of Agroecology Groups (ERGA<\/a>) last year in Rio de Janeiro. Moreover, each year Os\u00f3rio and her colleagues host welcome receptions for incoming agroecology students.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on all of Muda Mar\u00e9\u2019s activities, Os\u00f3rio affirms that the initiative strives to maintain a complete vision of and critical approach to environmental issues in Mar\u00e9. Underlying the initiative\u2019s activities is a view of sustainability as living in harmony with the place where you reside. \u201cYou identify with the territory. You recognize yourself as a part of that space, and automatically that comes with respect [for your territory] and harmonious coexistence,\u201d remarks Os\u00f3rio.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n*Muda Mar\u00e9 is one of over 100 community projects mapped<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Catalytic Communities<\/a>\u00a0(CatComm), the organization that publishes\u00a0RioOnWatch, as part of our parallel \u2018Sustainable Favela Network<\/a>\u2018 program launched in 2017 to recognize, support, strengthen, and expand on the\u00a0sustainable qualities and community movements inherent to<\/a>\u00a0Rio de Janeiro\u2019s favela communities. Check out\u00a0all the profiles of mapped projects here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas This article is part of a\u00a0series of profiles of initiatives in Rio\u2019s Sustainable Favela Network. Initiative: Muda Mar\u00e9 (“Mar\u00e9 Seeds of Change”) Contact: Blog |\u00a0Facebook | Email Year Founded: 2011 Community: […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":56329,"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":[1288,1271,1284,452,1329],"tags":[882,244,280,385,1565,1298,37,281,2602,1555,471,3186,2124,1099,2323],"writer":[3022],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-55634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-highlight","8":"category-favelaqualities","9":"category-interviews-profiles","10":"category-rio20","11":"category-by-international-observers","12":"tag-academia-x-civil-society","13":"tag-agroecology","14":"tag-complexo-da-mare","15":"tag-environmental-education","16":"tag-garden","17":"tag-green-space","18":"tag-north-zone","19":"tag-nova-holanda","20":"tag-nutrition","21":"tag-redes-de-desenvolvimento-da-mare","22":"tag-sustainability","23":"tag-sfn","24":"tag-sustainable-favela-network","25":"tag-trees","26":"tag-ufrj","27":"writer-colin-andrew"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55634","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\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55634"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=55634"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=55634"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=55634"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=55634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}