Community Library in Novo Iguaçu, Baixada Fluminense de Combate a Pobreza e a Fome
Once I stepped foot into my first favela, there was no turning back. I was truly spellbound. I had learned how they formed, I knew a bit of their tumultuous history, and my next obstacle was to understand how they functioned.
It also came time for me to choose a topic for my master’s thesis. Initially, I wanted to study the drug traffickers. I figured they held the answer to how favelas were managed. Fortunately, or not, that idea was quickly overruled. (Mostly due to my non-existent Portuguese skills and the danger these factions represent.) Luckily, for my family and friends, much on this subject had also already been written. And, for the most part, I get the gist. Traffickers work with lucrative material, and are therefore able to purchase their protection from the police and from the residents, in the form of guns and bribes. Because of this, they become powerful, and almost authoritarian, actors in the favela arena.
So, in the light of restrictions and impositions, I wanted to know more about the daily lives of the residents. I wanted to ask them who they were, what they did, what they used, and what they needed. This would give me an idea about how their lives were affected by all of the actions and actors implicated in the management of their communities.
Samba School, Aós Pes do Santa Marta
Soon enough my research question had been redefined. Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of favela life, I began to focus on the positive. Over the course of six months Roseli Franco, the Network Director for Catalytic Communities, brought me to a number of community projects. We visited a library, a physical therapy clinic, a workshop for children, a physical disability center, a program for prophylaxis and treatment of dental disease, a samba dance school, and a Catholic day care center for girls. All of the projects were designed around positively addressing a problem being faced by the community.
What I found was that in light of poor schools, poor health care, governmental neglect, political exploitation, danger, isolation, and poverty, residents were uniting to produce interesting and unique forms of development to improve their lives and the lives of others. As residents assembled to eradicate a specific problem, new community solutions were born.
At this point I knew I could no longer be a casual bystander.
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We don’t take enough time in our busy lives to truly see what others might be enduring. We take too much for granted. All of us should be doing more for our fellow man.