10 - Building bridges

Most interactions people outside the favelas have with people from the favelas are either on a one to one basis, as employees who don’t dent their wallets, or as a statistic; ‘four narco-traffickers killed by police raid earlier this morning’. But few understand the people of the favelas as a community. As I walk through the morro do Borel and see Monica and Gisella interact warmly with so many residents, telling me their stories along the way, I feel the unmistakeable energy of a community. Where I live my neighbour is a complete stranger as we stare nervously at the numbers while the lift approaches the Ground Floor. Once in a while the silence is broken with a “Wussup?” or even “Nice skateboard man!”, “Thank you”, smiles all round, and that’s the extent of my community life.

 

Closing the gap between the favelas and the rest of the city is exactly what Agenda Social was founded to achieve. It was conceived in 1996 by the renowned Sociologist Herbert de Souza, known as Betinho. This was during the campaign to make Rio the venue for the 2004 Olympics.

 Betinho was the founder of Ibase, the Brazilian institute of Social and Economic Studies, whose offices I will will be visiting soon. He was the one of the leaders and visionaries during the active movements of civil society in the early nineties. The first of these was called ‘the movement for ethics in politics’ which lead to the impeachment of the president Fernando Collor de Melo. He was caught with a little more than lips wrapped around his, what’s it called, bank account.

 

Note how the government suddenly gets all excited about helping the poor as soon as they become a threat to their prestigious and no doubt profitable Olympic games. Well Rio lost the bid, and political will dwindled, and eventually stood smack bang in the face of the objectives of Agenda Social.

 What were these objectives? Did they want to build a city of gold and have the whites serve the blacks as a ‘we’re sorry for what we’ve done to you over the past 500 years’? Not quite. The goal of Agenda Social was to confront inequality, and to build a more just and democratic society based on citizenship.

 

The immediate focus for achieving this goal was clear: Insuring quality education for all the young people and children; getting the homeless off the streets; urbanising and integrating the favelas with the city; assuring quality food for all young people and children, together with sports and citizenship playing a crucial role.

 Working groups were created to tackle each of these objectives. These groups comprised representatives of the most diverse sectors of society. These de-centralised units met in forums, where debates and discussions lead to decisions for action. These were democratic forums. This process was believed to be an ‘Integrated and Sustainable project of local development’.

 

Integrated because it brought together such a diverse representation of civil society, and sustainable because it offered this diverse facet of society a democratic participation in carving the road ahead. 

 Very soon though, it became apparent that to achieve their goals, they needed the strong contribution of government bodies. That’s when the momentum hit a brick wall, and the project had to pause, take a look around, and redefine itself.

 

Today its aim is two-fold. Its working groups continue to brainstorm and propose necessary steps for achieving the goals of the Agenda Social. It also tries to ignite the political will necessary for transforming these possible solutions from thoughts to action. That’s a romantic way of saying ‘hitting your head against a brick wall’.