{"id":63204,"date":"2020-12-18T12:11:54","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T15:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=63204"},"modified":"2020-12-20T15:08:40","modified_gmt":"2020-12-20T18:08:40","slug":"sustainable-favela-network-3rd-annual-full-network-meet-up-part-1-a-2020-retrospective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=63204","title":{"rendered":"Sustainable Favela Network 3rd Annual Full-Network Meet-Up, Part 1: A 2020 Retrospective"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

This is the first article in a series covering the events of the 3rd Annual Full-Network Meet-Up<\/a> of the Sustainable Favela Network, which happened online on November 7, 2020.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Sustainable Favela Network<\/a>\u00a0(SFN) is a project of Catalytic Communities (CatComm)* with the aim of building solidarity networks, increasing visibility, and developing joint activities that support the expansion of community-based initiatives that strengthen environmental sustainability and social resilience in favelas across the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region. The project began with the 2012 film\u00a0Favela as a Sustainable Model<\/a>, followed in 2017 with the\u00a0mapping of sustainability initiatives<\/a>\u00a0in favelas across Rio. In 2018, the program organized local\u00a0exchanges<\/a>\u00a0between eight of the most well-established community programs, followed by the\u00a01st Annual Full-Network Meet-Up<\/a>, launching the SFN formally on November 10, 2018. In 2019, the program organized another round of exchanges\u2014this time open to all SFN members and to members of the public\u2014in five favelas in Rio de Janeiro. The activities carried out in 2019 culminated in the\u00a02nd Annual Full-Network Meet-Up<\/a>. In 2020, the SFN\u2019s Working Groups continued to meet\u2014online, due to the\u00a0coronavirus<\/a>\u00a0pandemic\u2014carrying out a range of activities such as rounds of support (rondas afetivas),\u00a0teach-ins<\/a>, seminars,\u00a0fundraising campaigns<\/a>, a\u00a0commitment letter<\/a>\u00a0for political candidates, and a\u00a0debate<\/a> with mayoral candidates. To close the year, the Sustainable Favela Network held its 3rd Annual Full-Network Meet-Up, summarized below and in this series<\/a>, with the aim of bringing the network together, promoting the mutual strengthening of relationships among socio-environmental organizers, evaluating the SFN\u2019s 2020 activities, and making plans for 2021. <\/i>This is the first installment in a series of articles about the 3rd Annual Full Network Meet-Up, showing how creative engagement during the pandemic allowed for an exchange of knowledge and products: the results of the network\u2019s remote mobilization.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Remembering the Year 2020<\/h3>\n

On Saturday, November 7, 2020, the <\/span>Sustainable Favela Network<\/span><\/a> held its 3rd Annual Full-Network Meet-Up, bringing together members of the dynamic network comprised of residents, technical allies, and activists from almost 50 favelas from across Rio de Janeiro, as well as <\/span>quilombos<\/span><\/a> (<\/span>formally recognized ancestral lands of descendants of enslaved Africans<\/span>) and regions on the periphery of the <\/span>Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region<\/span><\/a>. Participants also joined the meeting from other areas in Brazil (S\u00e3o Paulo and Recife) and from abroad, including visitors from the USA (Los Angeles, New York, and Lowell, MA) and Europe (Portugal, England, and Norway). The Meet-Up took place on Zoom from 9am to 5pm, with 127 people taking part, and with 1,232 views as the event was <\/span>livestreamed on Facebook<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Meet-Up looked for creative ways to face the difficulty of holding an important community meeting online in the middle of a pandemic. How to foster the same collective spirit felt at this event as we had in previous years, since this time everyone would be meeting at a distance, communicating via screens?<\/span><\/p>\n

The first activity of the 3rd Annual Meet-Up was a retrospective hour, remembering and commemorating all the SFN\u2019s work in 2020. Theresa Williamson, Executive Director of <\/span>Catalytic Communities<\/span><\/a>, who moderated the day\u2019s activities, started by showing a retrospective video summarizing the <\/span>teach-ins<\/span><\/a> carried out by each SFN Working Group in 2020. The video also included the SFN’s\u00a0<\/span>debate<\/span> with <\/span>Rio de Janeiro’s 2020 mayoral candidates<\/span><\/a>, as well as the SFN’s <\/span>commitment letter<\/span><\/a> to the sustainable community-led development of the city\u2019s favelas, which was signed by <\/span>5 mayoral candidates and 89 city council candidates<\/span><\/a> in the 2020 elections.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The video, produced by cinematographer and SFN member Luiza de Andrade, showed the variety of themes covered by the network’s activities in 2020, ranging from solar energy to food sovereignty, craftsmanship to quilombos, waste pickers to ecological sewage systems, social and environmental activism to political actions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Watch the 2020 retrospective video<\/a>, specially prepared for the 3rd Annual Full-Network Meet-Up:<\/h3>\n