{"id":58575,"date":"2020-04-02T10:04:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T13:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=58575"},"modified":"2020-04-06T15:27:02","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T18:27:02","slug":"solutions-from-the-favelas-how-residents-and-organizations-are-acting-and-demanding-action-ahead-of-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=58575","title":{"rendered":"Solutions From the Favelas: How Residents Are Acting, Demanding Action Ahead of Covid-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

This is the seventh article in what will be a spotlighted issue on RioOnWatch for the foreseeable future: the new coronavirus as it impacts Rio de Janeiro\u2019s favelas<\/a>. This article is part of RioOnWatch\u2019s 2020 reporting partnership with The Rio Times<\/a> now focused on the impacts of coronavirus on Rio’s favelas. For the article as published in The Rio Times click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

In Brazil, the coronavirus pandemic is expected to disproportionately affect<\/a> favela communities. The State must never be exempted from its responsibility to provide health services, access to water, sewerage, and social protection, least of all during the pandemic. Meanwhile, reacting to fill the gap in public services, as always, are favela residents. It is not the first time that residents and organizations from the favelas have organized to hold authorities accountable for appropriate, efficient action, or to offer solutions for their territories<\/a>\u2014not only in leading such solutions, but also in denouncing public authorities’ misplaced priorities<\/a> and necropolitical actions<\/a>, through which the State decides, every day, who lives and who dies in our society.<\/p>\n

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

In past articles, we have shared online actions<\/a>\u2014concentrated foremost in the dissemination of quality information on coronavirus designed specifically for favela residents, united under the hashtag #COVID19NasFavelas<\/a>\u2014and donation campaigns<\/a> in support favela responses to the virus. This article will focus on the resulting tangible actions taking place in the territories themselves.<\/p>\n

Actions on Covid-19 in the Favelas<\/h3>\n

In Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/a>, in the North Zone, the community NGO Redes da Mar\u00e9 (Mar\u00e9 Development Networks<\/a>) distributed, over last week alone, 530 basic food baskets and 530 hygiene kits, in addition to to-go meals for the homeless. The products that make up the food baskets and meal containers were purchased within Mar\u00e9<\/a> as a form of strengthening the local economy. The group has also maintained an active dialogue with religious leaders<\/a>, raising awareness on the need to avoid large gatherings.<\/p>\n

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Cars fitted with loudspeakers are also circulating throughout Mar\u00e9<\/a>, and banners and signs are being affixed to commercial establishments, residents’ associations, bars, and churches, all containing information on prevention,hygiene, and on the importance of remaining at home. These are part of an initiative of the favela-based communications collectives Mar\u00e9 Vive<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Mar\u00e9 0800<\/span><\/a>, and<\/span> Amar\u00c9v\u00ea<\/span><\/a>, undertaken with the orientation of healthcare professionals. Videos and images are also being shared on social networks and in print, accessible here<\/a>. Gizele Martins<\/a>, a communicator and member of Mar\u00e9 0800 said in an interview<\/a> that, faced with the lack of support and importance given to the pandemic by political leaders: “[we, from the favelas] decided to organize ourselves, as we have always done, and begin making decisions in response to the situation. We aren’t going to sit around and do nothing. We have never done that.”<\/p>\n

“What we have managed to achieve is to unite a group of favela communicators to come up with a plan that takes into account the diversities and complexities of Mar\u00e9 in Rio de Janeiro,” she continued<\/a>. “There are people that live here that don’t know how to read and don’t have access to the Internet or to traditional media outlets. That’s why the first [action] that we took was to ask healthcare professionals that know our reality to record audio messages with critical recommendations […] We also need to be very careful with the people that go out to hang the signs. It is important not to distribute pamphlets by hand, as this increases the risk of spreading the virus,” she said.<\/p>\n

Similarly, in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>, the coalition #JuntosPeloComplexodoAlem\u00e3o<\/a>, an existing group reactivated by the institutions that make up the Alem\u00e3o Crisis Task Force<\/a>, is installing informational banners and distributing donations. Among these donations, water is crucial, given that the favelas of Alem\u00e3o have been some of the most affected by the lack of access to water. One of the group’s banners even requests that those residents with reliable running water at home share it with a neighbor that may not have it.<\/p>\n

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Last Friday the group held a meeting with Guilherme Campos<\/a>, the director of public water utility CEDAE<\/a>, together with the community’s residents’ associations and manobreiros<\/em> (CEDAE employees or resident association representatives responsible for opening and closing water connections as well as directing water flow to different areas of the hills of Alem\u00e3o) to address the problem. As immediate measures for confronting the pandemic, Campos vowed to increase the number of manobreiros<\/em>, send water trucks to serve the community, and inspect the two central pumps that service the favelas. Campos also said he would install a reservoir to make sure there would be no interruption in water flow in case one of the pumps burned out. For the medium term, Campos promised to activate the reservoirs of the Matinha and Alvorada regions and to build a water supply network for the neighborhood of Fazendinha<\/a>\u2014the favela has no such network and experiences the greatest frequency of water issues in Alem\u00e3o.<\/p>\n

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One of the institutions that make up the collaboration, Coletivo Papo Reto<\/a>, launched a funk carioca song on coronavirus prevention as a communication strategy. Similarly, B.A.S.E.<\/a>, an organization that works with youth in Santa Cruz<\/a>, in Rio’s West Zone, recorded an awareness-raising funk song with MC Tchelinho, of the group Heavy Baile<\/a>: “these words are for the favela, for my sisters and brothers […], let’s see if you can dig it: we need to wash our hands, hand sanitizer is the stuff, if you sneeze, cover it with your arm and don’t touch your face […] I’m not going out to gatherings, to the pagode<\/em> or bail\u00e3o<\/em>, soon enough it will be fine to go back to having a good time.”<\/p>\n