Janja will have an official position without remuneration in the Lula government – 03/03/2023 – Politics

First lady Rosângela Lula da Silva, known as Janja, should be appointed to an unpaid position at the Planalto Palace, with the aim of institutionalizing participation in ceremonies and meetings in different government structures.

In the first two months of government, Janja, who is a sociologist, did not have a defined position. Despite this, she assumed a leading role and dispatched daily from the Planalto Palace.

Now, Janja’s volunteer post should be in a new structure: the Office of Strategic Actions in Public Policy. The idea is for the position to be one of political articulation between different areas of the Esplanade and of advising the President of the Republic.

The first lady usually says that she wants to reframe the role traditionally reserved for the wives of representatives.

The idea of ​​the new Cabinet for Strategic Actions in Public Policies is to monitor and report to the representative on the progress of agendas considered a priority for the Chief Executive. According to interlocutors, it will not be responsible for proposing or implementing public policies.

The position will be unpaid, as the government cannot employ family members of the president. In this office will be the four advisers who already work with Janja. The plan is for her work schedule to be visible, including the daily disclosure of her public commitments.

According to palace assistants, the proposal began to be drawn up during the transition, as determined by Lula. Janja already works on the third floor of the Planalto, the same as the presidential office. His room already has a plaque with the name of the new function, but the structure must still be made official by publication in the Official Gazette.

Janja’s last predecessors had a more discreet role and participated as presidents of councils focused on social assistance policies. In the case of Michelle Bolsonaro, she commanded Pátria Voluntária, which was extinguished by the Lula government. Marcela Temer was a Happy Child ambassador.

Janja, on the other hand, doesn’t want to work on a single project. According to reports, her idea is to use her professional experience and political militancy to contribute to a set of public policies, which is her main interest; and act on what the president deems strategic.

Although her position is not formalized, Janja participated in meetings in ministries, such as Culture. On the occasion, she accompanied the creation of the culture committees, an election promise by Lula.

In addition, it organized meetings with civil society, such as breakfast with influencers, and later a meeting in reference to women’s month with ministers, presidents of public banks and the press.

Another agenda considered relevant for the first lady in the cabinet is food safety. When she worked at Itaipu, she coordinated a program on the subject. In this sense, Janja participated in the first plenary session of the relaunch of Consea (National Council for Food and Nutritional Security), in Planalto, last Tuesday (28).

“I am completely at the disposal of Consea. I want to participate in the discussions, because I learn a lot here. We can travel around Brazil taking this issue of food security and we will fight again to remove Brazil from the hunger map. As President Lula said, we’ve done it before and we’ll do it again, that’s the challenge,” he said. Ministers Márcio Macedo (General Secretariat) and Wellington Dias (Social Development) also participated in the event.

In addition, this week, the first lady hosted a breakfast to inaugurate women’s month and addressed another topic that should be addressed by the future cabinet: cases of femicide in the country.

“This issue of violence against women is a topic that, for me, it is very personal to participate, that I will with all my strength work together with the Ministry of Women and civil society so that we can no longer send a message of strength for a woman shot by her boyfriend and partner,” said Janja.

She added that reaching zero femicide and ending hunger may be “a government obsession.”

The theme was also on the agenda of a meeting in Planalto last Thursday (2) between Janja, the Minister of Women, Cida Gonçalves, and the Minister of Racial Equality, Anielle Franco. The two have a lot of affinity with the first lady.