{"id":60674,"date":"2020-07-27T13:43:36","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T16:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=60674"},"modified":"2020-12-24T12:53:52","modified_gmt":"2020-12-24T15:53:52","slug":"transformation-of-basic-sanitation-in-rio-de-janeiros-favelas-debated-at-online-teach-in-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=60674","title":{"rendered":"Transformation of Basic Sanitation in Rio de Janeiro’s Favelas Debated at Online Teach-In [VIDEO]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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

This is our latest article on Covid-19 and its impacts on favelas<\/a>\u00a0and in the series of Teach-Ins on Covid-19 in favelas<\/a>. It\u2019s also part of a series<\/a> created in partnership with the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies<\/a> at San Diego State University in California, to produce articles on human rights and socio-environmental justice in the favelas\u00a0for RioOnWatch.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

On July 9, Rio de Janeiro\u2019s Sustainable Favela Network<\/a> (SFN)* Water and Sewerage Working Group held an online teach-in event, \u201cPerspectives on the Transformation of Basic Sanitation in Favelas after the Pandemic.\u201d Practitioners from Rio and S\u00e3o Paulo’s peripheries discussed their experiences of access to clean, drinkable water and basic sewerage during the pandemic, <\/span>how the water and sanitation<\/a> situation in favelas reveals these cities’ necropolitics<\/a>, and possible solutions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The special guests were: Irenaldo Hon\u00f3rio, physiotherapist, nursing technician, and former president of the Pica-Pau<\/a> residents’ association, in Cordovil<\/a>, in the North Zone<\/a> of Rio de Janeiro; Alexandre Pessoa, civil sanitation engineer and doctor of tropical medicine at the Joaquim Ven\u00e2ncio Polytechnic School of Health<\/a> (EPSJV\/Fiocruz<\/a>); Ot\u00e1vio Alves Barros, president of the Vale Encantado<\/a> Residents’ Association and\u00a0Vale Encantado cooperative<\/a>\u00a0in Alto da Boa Vista<\/a>; Samantha Reis, graduate student at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and data analyst and developer of Coc\u00f4Zap<\/a>, a Data_Labe<\/a> project in the favelas of Mar\u00e9; F\u00e1bio Miranda, musician and permaculturist, inventor of sustainable technologies at the Favela da Paz Institute<\/a> in S\u00e3o Paulo, and founder of the Periferia Sustent\u00e1vel<\/a> project; Alessandra Alvez-Roque, floral therapist and herbalist, founder of Natural\u00ea<\/a>, and manager of the Wash Your Hands initiative, both in Morro da Provid\u00eancia<\/a>; Larissa Gama, environmental and sanitation engineering graduate student, and coordinator of the \u00c1guas da Baixada (Waters from Baixada) project of Engineers Without Borders<\/a>; and Ana L\u00facia Britto, UFRJ urbanism professor, researcher at the National Institute of Science and Technology and the Metropolis Observatory<\/a>, and project coordinator at the National Observatory of the Rights to Water and Sanitation<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The event\u2019s eight speakers addressed 86 people via Zoom, with over 500 accompanying via Facebook Live<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe pandemic shed light on the sanitation situation in the favelas,” said Britto. “We have known it for a long time, but only now is the media giving it a lot of attention.” The lack<\/span>\u00a0of basic sewage infrastructure in favelas has yielded dire consequences during the pandemic, the panelists said, making government neglect even more lethal than before.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, “sometimes the necessary knowledge is within the network you\u2019re a part of,\u201d said permaculturist F\u00e1bio Miranda. \u201cEveryone has the ability to develop low-cost sustainable technology. Yes, we complain about the problem, but why not create solutions?”<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Water Crisis and State\u2019s Lack of Policies<\/b><\/h3>\n

\u201cWho is responsible for sewage systems in favelas?\u201d asked Britto. \u201cIn Rio de Janeiro, an agreement was made in 2007 that said that Rio-\u00c1guas<\/a> (Rio de Janeiro\u2019s municipal agency for water management), the city government, is responsible. And so, people don’t even know who to complain to. It\u2019s not even clear: water is provided by CEDAE<\/a> (the state-owned water utility) and sewerage by the city. Since 2007, the city has not done any maintenance work.\u201d As this year is a municipal election year, she asked, \u201cWhat are the next mayor’s proposals for the favelas? Because the current one has no action plan for them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Brazilian government has a historic debt in relation to sanitation, leaving a series of precarities in water management, sanitary sewage,\u201d said Pessoa, who noted that problems with infrastructure and services \u201cvary according to buying power, skin color, and education. There exists a difference in access to the right to basic sanitation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUtilities have no interest in ensuring sanitation in favelas. Return is low and investment cost is high,\u201d noted Britto, adding that \u201cthere is a very large deficit of public action to realize the right to water. Service providers have this very serious divide with the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked about sanitation plans and whether structural investments would be prioritized, Pessoa answered that \u201cfavelas were disregarded in the municipal plan. There was no participation by society. The Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES) project itself is not considering universalization in favelas. This is environmental racism and state violence.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSanitation has never been a priority in favelas because it’s linked to quality of life,\u201d said Alvez-Roque, agreeing that \u201cinadequate access to sanitation is a reflection of social inequality. This dates way before the pandemic. It\u2019s been neglected for a long time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Lack of Infrastructure Hinders Sewage Systems and Basic Sanitation Initiatives<\/b><\/h3>\n

\u201cEven before CEDAE\u2019s water issue in 2020<\/a>, we suffered from our drinkable water being contaminated with sewage,\u201d said Hon\u00f3rio, referencing episodes throughout the last decade when murky, sewage-laden water came out of residents’ taps, even showers, in the favela of Pica-Pau, where he lives. \u201cMore and more residents suffer because they are drinking contaminated water. To this day, CEDAE has not come to survey the real situation,\u201d he explained. And even though CEDAE insisted that the water was safe to drink, \u201cmany elderly people and children are suffering from diarrhea and itching. They are unable to afford drinking water, especially in times of the pandemic,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today’s are thus far from the first water crises to hit residents of Rio’s favelas. The issue goes back more than one hundred years for favelas like Morro da Provid\u00eancia, Alvez-Roque pointed out. \u201cWe [were] the first favela<\/a>, and we [still] have a very big sewage problem.\u201d Pessoa said that in \u201cneighborhoods of [Greater Rio’s] Baixada Fluminense<\/a> there is no access to water in the middle of the pandemic. There is also water intermittency, places where equipment breaks and they run out of water. We have sanitation deserts.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnother issue is the very structure of the houses in favelas and deciding on appropriate technologies. There is a very big difference from Vale Encantado<\/a> to Rocinha<\/a>, to Mar\u00e9<\/a>,\u201d said Britto, insisting that \u201cthe central issue is lack of systems. In Rocinha, 21% of houses have no plumbing inside.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Alvez-Roque explained that in some houses, water tanks could not be properly placed. \u201cI created a project so that people could store water, but the people who needed it the most could not have it because the house had no structure for this.\u201d Alvez-Roque is also at the forefront of a current project in Morro da Provid\u00eancia called “Wash Your Hands”, which installs sinks in public, accessible spaces.<\/span><\/p>\n

Several of the panelists also noted that even when there is infrastructure in place to provide water access, \u201cif you have a problem in the sewage system, when you pump water, it often has a strong sewage smell.\u201d In Morro da Provid\u00eancia, Alvez-Roque says, \u201cthe sewage runs out in the open.\u201d Hon\u00f3rio described a harrowing situation, saying that when it rains in Pica-Pau, \u201cthe community is like a river [all flooded]. Then, you have poop everywhere. There is no technical supervision on how to install a <\/span>sewer pipe.\u201d Contamination arises in the context of lack of technical support for installing both water and sewer pipes. In Pica-Pau, residents are left with dirty water in their taps, exposed to harmful bacteria and diseases. As many lack the resources to buy bottled water, they are told to boil their water before consumption.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Solutions from the Favelas<\/b><\/h3>\n

Given the \u201cvariety of typology that we have in Rio\u2014favelas on cliffs, flat favelas, etc.\u2014, the lack of reservoirs, problems with frequency of water supply,\u201d asked Britto, \u201chow do we adapt these systems to more sustainable technologies?\u201d She argued that \u201cit doesn’t have to be the same system everywhere,\u201d but insisted that \u201cthere are questions that need to be asked to understand what would be the best technology to deal with these issues.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The lack of sufficient basic sanitation infrastructure and policies in favelas has placed residents at the forefront of solving water problems historically, and especially now during the pandemic: \u201cthe systems that were established did not grow at the same pace as population, and so the population establishes new [water] connections, installs water pumps, and all that creates [new] problems. People make do themselves because no one can live without water,\u201d explained Britto.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Through the Wash Your Hands project, created during the pandemic,<\/span> Alvez-Roque and partners in her community installed 64 sinks with soap in and around Morro da Provid\u00eancia. Of those, Alvez-Roque said the most-used sinks are those bordering a traffic tunnel that passes beneath the hill that is home to the community, \u201cbecause they serve the homeless population.\u201d The soap is \u201cmade with reused oil\u201d using a traditional technique and distributed to families in the favela, she said. Alvez-Roque has produced seven thousand liters of soap.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Meanwhile, in Vale Encantado<\/a>, one biodigester receives organic waste from the community’s cooperative restaurant and produces biogas. \u201cThis gas comes back to the cooperative to bake cakes, p<\/span>ies, and other products we make,\u201d said Barros. Meanwhile, a second biosystem, including a larger biodigester, increasingly processes the community’s sewage. Five of the community’s 40 or so homes are now set up. Prior to the pandemic, the community had plans to complete the system in 2020. \u201cThe biodigester also generates biofertilizer, which is used in the community. This material, with its many nutrients, we intend to bottle and sell. We are able to treat this sewage instead of it going into the forest.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

F\u00e1bio Miranda, the panel’s special invited speaker from S\u00e3o Paulo<\/a>, who created the trailblazing Sustainable Periphery (Periferia Sustent\u00e1vel<\/a>) project focused on implementing renewable energy systems in the peripheries of S\u00e3o Paulo and across Brazil, said, like Barros, that they were \u201ctaking what people call trash and transforming it into a source of energy.\u201d Amusician and inventor, Miranda showed participants around his sustainable technology laboratory at the Favela da Paz Institute in S\u00e3o Paulo: \u201cHere is the laboratory with automation systems, laser cutter, 3D printer.\u201d He showed the audience the solar-powered flushing system that he created for their toilet, which \u201cuses on average 6 Liters,\u201d describing how low-cost, sustainable technologies can be integrated in favelas.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Reis presented the project Coc\u00f4Zap, in which residents can denounce sanitation problems. CocoZap has a WhatsApp number (+5521999573216), \u201cpeople send messages and the data are saved online<\/a>.<\/span>\u201d Through use of the collaborative framework, she explained, residents can engage in and influence local policies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some locally-developed initiatives try to cater to the basic needs of populations at a low cost. An example of this is the \u00c1guas da Baixada<\/a> project. Realized by Engineers without Borders Brazil with support from Tetra Tech, this project focuses on \u201cmaking rainwater drinkable through filtration and disinfection,\u201d explained Gama.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Britto ended the discussion by praising the solutions that her fellow panelists presented: \u201cI think that these alternatives, in addition to being more ecologically sustainable, can be forms of resistance against profit-driven models that seek to privatize [our public utilities]. I think this is a beacon of hope.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Watch the teach-in here<\/a>:<\/h3>\n