{"id":9116,"date":"2013-06-07T09:00:08","date_gmt":"2013-06-07T12:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=9116"},"modified":"2014-11-24T13:30:44","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T16:30:44","slug":"favela-nao-se-cala-continues-mobilizing-knowledge-in-providencia-horto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=9116","title":{"rendered":"Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala Continues Mobilizing Awareness in Provid\u00eancia & Horto"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last month in Provid\u00eancia\u00a0Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala<\/a><\/em> organized a gathering of over fifty people that included residents of favelas from across the city, public defenders, law students, activists and social workers. Photographers and videographers flitted about the discussion circle, including the crew of Dominio P\u00fablico<\/a><\/em>, the investigative project currently being filmed about the privatization of Rio. Favela residents shared their experiences of state policy toward their communities and efforts to counter some of those policies, namely the displacement of thousands of families to public housing with low transparency and public works that often harm residents more than they benefit them.<\/p>\n

The Provid\u00eancia<\/a> forum on Saturday May 19 was one in a stream of recent activities organized or attended by the group, which also held a meeting of over two hundred people in Horto last month and was present at the recent\u00a0<\/span>launch of the Popular Committee\u2019s\u00a0dossier<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0debate about public security in Mar\u00e9<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Provid\u00eancia meeting focused on specifics in a climate of developing awareness about what\u2019s hap<\/span>pening to Rio\u2019s favela residents as the city prepares for the coming mega-events<\/span>. In Provid\u00eancia, over a third of the homes (more than 600) have been removed or marked for removal under justification that residents either live in risk areas\u2014a concept refuted at length by an engineer at the meeting\u2014or that the removals are necessary for the execution of <\/span>Morar Carioca<\/a>, the municipal program stated to provide on-site upgrades to favelas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cable Car Denunciations<\/strong><\/p>\n

Forty-six percent of the money spent on Morar Carioca so far in Provid\u00eancia has gone toward the cable car<\/a> currently under construction, which Mayor Eduardo Paes said will become \u201cSugarloaf Mountain number two.\u201d At the meeting, Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ) Social Services professor Isabel Costa Cardoso<\/a> of the Port Community Forum<\/a> talked about the three major impacts for residents receiving a cable car, having also spoken with residents in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a> where one has already been installed and Rocinha<\/a> where one is planned: \u201cThe first point is the degree to which the installation of these cable cars is profitable to the same group of construction companies,\u201d said Cardoso. She went on,\u00a0\u201cThe second point is about the home removals and lack of public participation that are part of the cable car installation process.” Over half of the homes higher on the hill than the drop-off point of the cable car\u2014supposedly, those residents who would stand to benefit most from its installation\u2014live in homes marked for removal. Some homes have already been demolished, with their former residents either living in public housing<\/a> units in the West Zone, receiving R$400 monthly social rent, building new homes in distant favelas on land purchased with compensations received, or staying with friends and family while they await or negotiate compensation payment for homes. The remainder of Morar Carioca construction in Provid\u00eancia is currently stalled due to a court ruling<\/a> citing lack of fulfillment of public audience requirements before the construction began.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cOur third point to emphasize,\u201d continued Cardoso, \u201cis that although these cable cars have been talked up as methods for increasing access to transportation, never\u2014not in local, state, or federal law\u2014has a cable car been recommended as an effective method to increasing urban mobility.\u201d Cardoso invited all who were interested to join in refining these points after the meeting and strategize for their dissemination to people inside and outside Provid\u00eancia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandmother built her home in Provid\u00eancia without needing a cable car, without a mototaxi and without a kombi van,\u201d said resident Cosme Felippsen. \u201cShe walked up.\u201d Felippsen read out a poem he had written about the history of Provid\u00eancia, the first favela<\/a> in Rio, including its founding by industrious soldiers returning from the Canudos war in 1897, the original installations of buildings and public spaces, and more recent phases of development such as the arrival of the LAN-houses, internet access points that proceeded today\u2019s wi-fi.<\/p>\n

Eron C\u00e9sar dos Santos, a capoeira instructor from Provid\u00eancia, said he was glad there was historical research underway into Provid\u00eancia\u2019s role in the birth of samba music. What made him less easy, he said, was seeing things like a restaurant guide to the favelas<\/a> on sale in a fancy store for R$70. \u201cWe have to be careful with these things. Who is gaining with this promotion of culture?\u201d dos Santos asked, saying that it was important for favela residents to maintain ownership of their identities and the legacy they were inheriting. \u201cYou don\u2019t need to leave the favela to improve your life. You need to tell your story.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Organizing to Prevent Evictions<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong>Maria do Socorro gave an update to the group on the story of her community, Indiana-Tijuca, which is representative both in the degree of transparency in which removals are being conducted and in the tactics that communities can use to counter them better.<\/p>\n

Do Socorro told the group that on January 17, 2012, she and other members of the Indiana-Tijuca Residents\u2019 Association were called to a meeting with then-Municipal Housing Secretary Jorge Bittar, who said the community was going to receive public improvements. Two weeks later, every house in the community was spray-painted with the Housing Secretariat\u2019s initials, SMH, sign that they were slated for demolition. As some families and homes were taken out, the community fought back. Then, on December 10, 2012, they received a judicial order suspending demolition because a 2006-2010 study was identified that said that in fact the community was in an area of low environmental risk. By that time, 110 families had already been removed to public housing in Triagem in Rio\u2019s North Zone, almost an hour away by public transportation. 720 families remain. On May 16, the community began the process of legalization of land ownership.<\/p>\n

Do Socorro said that although her community should serve as a success story of fighting for a community\u2019s right to stay, they still faced one of the most common obstacles to exercising this right\u2014unity. \u201cWe had a public hearing on May 9 with City Councilman Renato Cinco and Subsecretary of Housing Marco Antonio about evictions. I have to say, it was hectic, with fifty people asking for new units in public housing and fifty who wanted to stay where they were.\u201d Do Socorro said that overall, the community has significant inertia, because 500 of the remaining families want to stay and 120 want to go. \u201cMost people you ask will say, \u2018for the love of God, don\u2019t move me to Triagem.’\u201d Do Socorro encouraged everyone present to clarify their own messages about what their communities wanted, and to utilitize resources such as the public defenders office and spread information about their case.<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Constantine, a resident of Babil\u00f4nia, said that sometimes the reason not all communities are as successful as Indiana with this issue comes from a group within the community itself\u2014the Residents Association. \u201cIn many cases, the residents association has been bought by the city government,\u201d Constantine said, receiving special treatment in exchange for not protesting municipal actions toward the favela. Clientelism within the residents associations has been an issue in the democratic governance of favelas since the associations were required by law in the early 1960s by Rio de Janeiro State. Examples of this abound; on March 9 of this year, after Pav\u00e3o-Pav\u00e3ozinho resident Elisangela Sena<\/a> had booked a plaza near her home days in advance, as was required, for a Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala<\/em> meeting, two hours ahead of time she learned that the Association was instead using the plaza for a city-sponsored event, leaving Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala<\/em> to scramble for a new space and try to spread word of the change to would-be attendees of the event by phone.<\/p>\n

Constantine said because of these issues, it was especially important to stay organized and keep flows of information open about what is happening.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Inconsistencies With Blaming ‘Risk’\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Civil and mechanical engineer Maur\u00edcio Campos, who has worked for over fifteen years on slope stabilization projects, clarified a few things about the city\u2019s common \u201cenvironmental risk\u201d justification for removing families from favelas. Campos has said in the past<\/a> that the dramatic mudslides that occur in some favelas during rainy season are the result of lack of proper slope stabilization and drainage infrastructure, both public responsibilities, and that no favela actually needs to be entirely removed due to geographic risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is much less expensive to solve the environmental risk issue by actually providing these stabilization projects to the favelas than it is to remove them entirely,\u201d Campos said. \u201cYet the city has announced that they are planning to do that to 122 favelas.\u201d Inconsistencies with the environmental risk justification abound; one Borel community was removed because it was in a \u201crisk area\u201d only for R$600,000 apartments to be built on the same site.<\/p>\n

Campos encouraged the group to consider the risk justification, outlined in a 2010 city publication, when they were adding up the total number of families being relocated across the city. \u201cThis week, I saw numbers around 8,000 being reported due to the Popular Committee report<\/a> summarizing human rights violations in the run up to the coming mega-events. That number is far too low. The number of families who live in these supposed \u2018high risk\u2019 communities is 20,247. If you multiply them by around five members per family, you are looking at over 100,000 people being removed due to the risk justification alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campos pulled out a copy of the Morar Carioca guidelines<\/a>. \u201cHere in this document, which was signed into city decree in October 2012, there are instructions for the removal of anyone who lives in what the city has classified a risk area. Right there, that breaks the national law and the city law, which provide explicitly for the on-site upgrading of favelas.\u201d Campos encouraged attendees to be aware of these laws, reprinted in a document distributed by the Port Community Forum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Discussing Gentrification & Security<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong>In April, Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala<\/em> also met in Horto<\/a>, a well-organized community near the botanical gardens that is currently resisting removal. There were over 200 people in attendance, including representatives from almost all of the fourteen favelas who currently participate in Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala<\/em>\u2014Provid\u00eancia<\/a>, Cantagalo<\/a>, Pav\u00e3o-Pav\u00e3ozinho<\/a>, Borel<\/a>, Babil\u00f4nia<\/a>, Chap\u00e9u Mangueira<\/a>, Indiana-Tijuca<\/a>, Santa Marta<\/a>, Salgueiro<\/a>, Manguinhos<\/a>, Acari<\/a>, Rocinha<\/a>, Horto<\/a>, and Jacarezinho<\/a>. In addition, representatives spoke from the Pastoral das Favelas, Popular Committee of the World Cup and Olympics, the past and present State housing public defender\u2019s office, and the law school of the Catholic University of Rio (PUC-Rio). Repper Fiel of Santa Marta, who raps about issues of favela identity, removals, and gentrification, performed at the close.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Several favela residents spoke about the pacification-commercialization cycle that has been increasingly pronounced in favelas and how it has brought price hikes in utilities that would be unjustifiably high even in the formal city. For favela residents, these price increases act as a strong pressure to drive them out, and since many were unaccustomed to receiving private utility bills, instead paying to the residents association or another body for provision, they did not know what normal prices were and so did not know whether to protest. One woman from Salgueiro cited a monthly electricity bill of R$350 (US$175) for having one television and one refrigerator in her house.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cBe aware that these issues have to do with which social class is allowed to live where,\u201d said Constantine of Babil\u00f4nia. \u201cThey took the vans out<\/a> of the South Zone. All of the fares on the public buses are rising. But it is us who sustain society here,\u201d referring both to favela culture and the jobs that favela residents perform in the city.<\/p>\n

In the housing law language distributed by the Port Community Forum, the stipulation for on-site upgrading of favelas–where rather than dismantling functional communities by moving them to public housing, the missing public services are instead brought in–is explained as written into legal code in order to serve the \u201csocial function of land in Brazil,\u201d that is, the function of accessible housing regardless of social class.<\/p>\n

Francilene Cardoso, a resident of Chap\u00e9u Mangueira, said that it was important for favela residents to speak up not only about high charges, forced removals, and gentrification they were facing but also about the physical abuse of police force. \u201cPart of this whole process is that more young people are getting shot and killed by the police,\u201d she said, referring to tactics such as police fire into crowded residential areas<\/a>. \u201cYou have a right to fair treatment by the police just like you have a right to housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know what we need; we don\u2019t need the government telling us,\u201d said Constantine of increased policing and monumental interventions. \u201cWe need our right to housing to be respected. We need our dignity respected. And we need unity. Without popular participation, we\u2019re not going to transform anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Public defender Adrianna Britto encouraged the group to participate as the surest method to a fair outcome. \u201cYou are citizens. You have a voice, and using it is the only way to reach justice,\u201d she said to the crowd in Horto.<\/p>\n

Both the Horto and Provid\u00eancia meetings included members of other social movements within the city, some of them non-favela residents. Monica Lima spoke against the widespread closing of public health facilities currently underway\u00a0in the state and the privatization of healthcare plans encouraged by the government. Another attendee spoke about the importance of accepting allies to the\u00a0Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala<\/em> movement who were not themselves favela residents but could offer support, whether that be in communications or technical assistance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Constantine emphasized at both recent meetings that Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala<\/em> was a medium-to-long-term project of grassroots education. \u201cWe don\u2019t want any affiliation with a political party, because the current system in Brazil is not a democracy,” he said in Provid\u00eancia. “I don\u2019t have faith in it.” Instead, he encouraged communication as the surest method to mobilize people because it was a direct counter to the inconsistent information from the city government about coming changes in the lives of favela residents.<\/p>\n

In particular, Constantine said it was important to communicate about the law and guidelines of the city and how they compare to current treatment. \u201cPeople are telling me that I don\u2019t have a right to live in my home,\u201d said Socorro of Indiana-Tijuca. \u201cI resist. I do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month in Provid\u00eancia\u00a0Favela N\u00e3o Se Cala organized a gathering of over fifty people that included residents of favelas from across the city, public defenders, law students, activists and social workers. Photographers and videographers flitted […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":9456,"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":[335,329,336],"tags":[1027,555,804,150,112,1261,190,756,272,783,11,65,884,282,26,25,883,499,354,129,637,147,197,37,1292,15,152,155,17,905,144,69,210,409,10,12,906,66,443,904],"writer":[611],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-policies","8":"category-solutions","9":"category-violations","10":"tag-area-of-risk-designation","11":"tag-acari","12":"tag-borel","13":"tag-cable-car","14":"tag-cantagalo","15":"tag-central-rio","16":"tag-comite-popular","17":"tag-community-organizing","18":"tag-mayor-eduardo-paes","19":"tag-favela-nao-se-cala","20":"tag-forced-evictions","21":"tag-gentrification","22":"tag-horto","23":"tag-housing","24":"tag-housing-rights","25":"tag-human-rights","26":"tag-indiana","27":"tag-jacarezinho","28":"tag-law","29":"tag-leadership","30":"tag-manguinhos","31":"tag-morar-carioca","32":"tag-morro-da-babilonia","33":"tag-north-zone","34":"tag-organizing","35":"tag-pacifying-police-unit","36":"tag-participation","37":"tag-pavao-pavaozinho","38":"tag-police-brutality","39":"tag-price-hikes","40":"tag-morro-da-providencia","41":"tag-public-defenders","42":"tag-public-housing","43":"tag-public-transportation","44":"tag-real-estate-speculation","45":"tag-rocinha","46":"tag-salgueiro","47":"tag-santa-marta","48":"tag-security","49":"tag-utilities","50":"writer-catherine-osborn"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9116","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\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9116"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=9116"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=9116"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=9116"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=9116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}