The transformative power of the community – 10/08/2023 – Marcia Castro

What image does the population have of favelas?

What you see on TV, what you read in the newspapers and what you hear on the radio revolves around the same theme: violence. Lives interrupted, dreams destroyed, people deprived of the right to come and go. A serious social and public security problem.

This violence overshadows the supportive, entrepreneurial, inspiring, innovative and transformative character of favelas. Last week, Harvard University’s Brazil Studies Program, which I coordinate, brought a team from G10 Favelas to speak at various schools (public health, government, business, arts). Packed auditoriums welcomed voices from the Paraisópolis favela, in São Paulo. Voices that rarely gain space in an institution that normally welcomes heads of state, ministers, personalities, and renowned scholars.

Created in 2019, the G10 is a group of social impact leaders and entrepreneurs from the ten largest favelas in Brazil. They seek the economic and social development of addresses. The G10 promotes community actions that guarantee access to food, organic gardens, health, financing, delivery of goods and income generation for the most vulnerable, among others.

With the arrival of Covid-19, 40 days after the first case reported in São Paulo, the G10 in Paraisópolis organized ten actions to combat the pandemic. In 40 days!

There were solutions from the community to the community: distribution of lunch boxes, hiring an ambulance to cover the absence of Samu, distribution of basic food baskets and personal hygiene items, training residents as first responders, teleservice, legal support to claim basic rights, home office for seamstresses and distribution of masks, support for day laborers who were unable to work, creation of a reception center with 520 beds for isolation of infected people and creation of the system of street presidents (volunteers who serve 50 families, similar to the model of the Health Strategy Family Health).

As a result, Paraisópolis had a better performance against Covid-19 compared to Morumbi, a neighboring and much richer neighborhood.

Another example is the MISMEC 4 Varas Project: Community that Cares, located in the Pirambu favela, in Fortaleza, the capital of Ceará. For more than 30 years, the initiative has offered community therapies, contributing to the improvement of mental health. Technicians and professionals in the social, health, education and community leaders areas are also trained there.

In 2018, I took 15 students from the Harvard School of Public Health, who joined 15 students from Brazil, to a public health field course in Fortaleza. We visited the MISMEC 4 Varas project and participated in a community therapy action. The experience was transformative, being the subject of that class’s speaker during the graduation ceremony the following year.

The type of community therapy promoted by MISMEC 4 Varas is the basis of Harvard University’s EMPOWER project, which aims to train community agents in mental health via digital platforms.

These are just two examples that show a little publicized side of favelas. Examples that should be case studies in universities in Brazil and around the world.

Yes, there is violence in favelas, but those born in favelas do not have violence and failure as their destiny. The G10 shows this clearly!

It is necessary to make the good visible. Empower those who empower. Value those who transform. Promote those who innovate seeking the common good.

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