{"id":59572,"date":"2020-05-16T12:39:14","date_gmt":"2020-05-16T15:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=59572"},"modified":"2020-05-17T11:31:05","modified_gmt":"2020-05-17T14:31:05","slug":"coronavirus-in-the-life-of-favelas-part-10-the-challenge-of-physical-distancing-in-vila-nova-jaguare-sao-paulo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=59572","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus in the Life of Favelas, Part 10: Challenge of Physical Distancing in Jaguar\u00e9, S\u00e3o Paulo"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>This article from Vila Nova Jaguar\u00e9 is the tenth and final in a <\/i><\/b>series about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on daily life in the favelas<\/i><\/b><\/a>. The series is made possible through a partnership with the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies at San Diego State University.\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Vila Nova Jaguar\u00e9<\/a> is one of the largest favelas in the city of S\u00e3o Paulo<\/a> in terms of its geographic extension, and is located in the district of Jaguar\u00e9<\/a>, one of the first planned neighborhoods in the West Zone of S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s capital city. The neighborhood was designed<\/a> in the 1930s to house the Jaguar\u00e9 Industrial Center<\/a>, one of the city’s main industrial centers in the 1970s.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Due to the high demand for housing, an area reserved for a 160,000m\u00b2<\/a><\/span>\u00a0public park in the neighborhood began to be occupied in the 1960s and 1970s, forming the Jaguar\u00e9 favela, which today is known as Vila Nova Jaguar\u00e9. The favela currently has 12,000 inhabitants<\/a> and preserves a history of intense popular struggle<\/a> for the right to the city and to housing. It was only in the 2000s that the favela was formally recognized by the public authorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

My name is Thuane Ainy Campos Barretto and my history with Vila Nova Jaguar\u00e9 is one of constant \u201ccoming and going.\u201d I lived in the neighborhood for over 10 years. The last time I moved away was in 2013, but my uncles and grandparents still live there. I visit the community every day because I work as an actress and cultural activity supervisor at Projeto PALCO<\/a>, a community-based initiative.<\/span><\/p>\n

To write this piece, I interviewed Andreza Santos Rodrigues, a resident, actress, and playwright from Vila Nova Jaguar\u00e9. She worked with me on this report, and together we interviewed Urideia Andrade de Costa, who heads the Mobiliza Jaguar\u00e9 project<\/a> along with Projeto PALCO, and is also a resident of Vila Nova Jaguar\u00e9.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They say the pandemic is democratic, but honestly, I don\u2019t understand where that viewpoint is coming from. What Costa told me over a phone interview reveals a different perspective<\/a>: \u201cHow are we supposed to protect ourselves? Social distancing with two bedrooms for four, six, eight people? With no money to buy milk, let alone hand sanitizer and soap to stay clean! The only protection for most residents here is faith in God. There is anxiety among the residents about their future<\/a>. Many have nothing to eat.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Costa, who owns the Flor de Mandacaru buffet restaurant<\/a> in Jaguar\u00e9, also shared her impressions on the impact of the pandemic on businesses and residents in the neighborhood. \u201cBusinesses have ground to a halt. Many generate jobs for the community\u2019s residents, jobs that pay their rent, and it’s unclear how all of this will play out with the increased unemployment. This is why it\u2019s important to stimulate the local economy so that these business owners don\u2019t go bankrupt. You can see the desperation in their faces, as they\u2019re all suffering from a drop in sales. It\u2019s a delicate time for everyone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Social inequality is therefore evident in her account. The inequality in the conditions for rent, housing, and food means Covid-19 is not a democratic disease. \u201cThere\u2019s already no money to buy essential goods! Food is no longer reaching the table. Food consumption with the entire family at home all day is much higher. Moms are no longer working; dads look away despondently and see no opportunities; children ask for snacks when there are none. It\u2019s sad. There are no expectations for when the food situation will normalize, and also no expectations for when this will all end,\u201d reports Costa.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\u201cThere are people campaigning<\/a> to collect food for socially vulnerable families. This doesn\u2019t fix it, but it does help address the situation. Residents are going after the [Emergency Assistance] promised by the government. This will help alleviate the burden of this quarantine period. People are standing together like never before<\/a> and paying attention to what\u2019s happening with those around them. The feeling that everyone is in the same boat has increased everyone\u2019s will to help others<\/a> and share what they have with those who have nothing,\u201d she concludes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Mobiliza Jaguar\u00e9<\/a> movement has taken shape to respond to the emergency, a partnership between Flor de Mandacaru and Projeto PALCO. Together, they are promoting a campaign to raise money for different initiatives in the neighborhood<\/a>, such as putting together basic food baskets, which are purchased at local supermarkets and delivered to the most vulnerable families. Within 15 days, the movement raised R$17,765 (US$3,015) with 137 beneficiary families, and another 40 families which will soon benefit from these funds<\/a>. Seven local businesses also benefitted from this drive, and 29 volunteers were involved with the project. The campaign is still on-going, with 142 families on the waitlist<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

When interviewed, Rodrigues told me she keeps a journal on day-to-day life during the pandemic, so I invited her to co-author this piece with me and incorporate her first-person entries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rodrigues’ writings not only log everyday activities, but also the challenges faced in living with the pandemic as an independent worker and an artist in the favela:<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a mother, or a grandmother, or anyone\u2019s aunt, but I am a sister, I\u2019m a daughter, I\u2019m a person. I\u2019m not rich, I have no fixed salary. I\u2019m an independent worker and I\u2019m an artist. I don\u2019t pay rent, but I pay water, power, and gas bills. Life is much more difficult for someone living on the periphery, even more so for an artist. Me, stay at home? I\u2019ll stay, fearful of something that\u2019s invisible. When I sneeze, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s Covid-19 or a dusty room. There\u2019s no way of knowing. I know nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n

I create my art during this quarantine and I share it, without charging anything. I can\u2019t leave for rehearsals, I can\u2019t leave to work on arranging costumes, I can\u2019t leave just to get some inspiration. Everything I do has to be from here at home. There is a lot of poetry here, because I\u2019m an artist. This brings me some respite, but also I fall into despair. I notice the water for the coffee boiling and run to switch off the gas, to avoid wasting it. I don\u2019t know how long this nightmare will last. I don\u2019t know how I\u2019ll be able to remain calm. I\u2019m not a mother, I\u2019m not a grandmother, I\u2019m not an aunt, but you can be sure I bear their same uncertainties.<\/span><\/p>\n

I listen to the children screaming all day, and the dogs barking all day. I don\u2019t see much because I\u2019m following the WHO\u2019s guidance to shelter at home. Few people from the peripheries stay at home. I stay because there\u2019s nothing else for me to do. There\u2019s nowhere to work. I need the money, but I also need my health. The choice the peripheries face: get even poorer but stay healthy, or remain poor and get sick? I chose to become even poorer and stay healthy so that when this is all over, I\u2019ll be able to keep hustling again and again.<\/span><\/p>\n

I went to the market yesterday. It was the third time I left the house since March 16, when I worked for the last time and noticed the churro stand still operating, the bar still open, Dona Neti\u2019s produce stand open, the market open. And at the check-out counters there was glass between the customers and the employees, like they have at the banks. The elderly, who sit all day on the sidewalk near the market, were no longer there. The people who were on the street were examining each other as if looking for signs of Covid-19, but I found myself doing the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the week, everything is quieter. On weekends, we hear a medley of sounds. That hasn\u2019t changed! Weekends are when we listen to music in the favelas, cranked up really loud. It\u2019s as if we\u2019ve tired of listening to our own thoughts, our uncertainties, and turn on the music. I didn\u2019t used to do that, but now I do. I turn on my little radio and listen to music while tidying up my room.<\/span><\/p>\n

I watch people on TV protesting [the government] by banging pots and pans at their windows. I think it\u2019s great that the people are raising their voices, but do you think I can bang pots? Who will fix them? We know this is ineffective! Just stop! You\u2019ll tell me I\u2019m cynical, that I\u2019ve lost my faith? I\u2019m just sharing my views. I can\u2019t bang pots or ruin my bean ladle! I need to make food. Food is more important than ruining my pans for a guy who comes out and says that \u201cUnfortunately, some people are going to die.\u201d My protest is different, and it\u2019s all I can do right now: I stay home, I keep my house clean, I survive this, and I go back to work. There are days when I wake up positive, there are others when I wake up in a rage. But does getting enraged accomplish anything? No one sees the rage, the desperation, the agony, the uncertainty here in the peripheries. From their side, all they see is bricks and roofs, open gutters. They don\u2019t see people<\/a>, they just see a place and that\u2019s the end of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thuane Ainy Campos Barretto is an actress and playwright with the theater company <\/span><\/i>T\u00d4 EM OUTRA! Cia. de Teatro<\/span><\/i><\/a>, which she founded with friends in 2012. She\u2019s a psychologist who graduated in 2019 from Universidade Paulista and has worked at Projeto PALCO in Jaguar\u00e9 since early 2020 as an activity supervisor.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Andreza Rodrigues is an actress and playwright. She is a resident of the Vila Nova Jaguar\u00e9 favela who began her artistic career at the theater company Cia. de Teatro Vizinho Legal in 2008 (currently Cia. PALCO). She\u2019s also a founder of the theater company <\/span><\/i>T\u00d4 EM OUTRA! Cia. de Teatro<\/span><\/i><\/a>, where she wrote \u201cDas ruas um Orfeu de mochila\u201d and \u201cUm tempo para o infinito.\u201d Rodrigues holds a Bachelor\u2019s in Photography from Universidade Paulista.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Support our efforts to provide strategic assistance to Rio\u2019s favelas during the Covid-19 pandemic, including\u00a0<\/b>RioOnWatch<\/i><\/b>\u2019s tireless, critical and cutting-edge hyperlocal journalism, online community organizing meetings, and direct support to favelas\u00a0by clicking here<\/a><\/b>.<\/b><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas This article from Vila Nova Jaguar\u00e9 is the tenth and final in a series about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on daily life in the favelas. The series is made […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":162,"featured_media":59579,"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":[3071,1328,1268,1503],"tags":[396,109,3068,428,445,506,291,203,878,2602,293,406,3030,2634,3093,520,319],"writer":[3120,3121],"translator":[338],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-59572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-coronaviruswatch","8":"category-by-community-contributors","9":"category-favelaculture","10":"category-opportunities-to-support-favelas","11":"tag-art","12":"tag-community-business","13":"tag-coronavirus","14":"tag-employment","15":"tag-entrepreneurship","16":"tag-exclusion","17":"tag-food","18":"tag-inequality","19":"tag-international-comparison","20":"tag-nutrition","21":"tag-poetry","22":"tag-sao-paulo","23":"tag-sense-of-belonging","24":"tag-series","25":"tag-series-coronavirus-in-the-daily-life-of-favelas","26":"tag-solidarity","27":"tag-theatre","28":"writer-andreza-rodrigues","29":"writer-thuane-ainy-campos-barretto","30":"translator-carolyn-oliveira"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59572","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\/162"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/59579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59572"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=59572"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=59572"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=59572"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=59572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}