Shanty Town Lives
Barb de Souza – Brazil
A 9 year-old boy, Guilherme, who may lose his home in the near future made this poster for a protest march against the removal of 542 shanty town homes because of their proximity to the apartments where the athletes and their special quests will stay during the Pan American Olympics from the 12th of July to the 29th.
“Cesar Maia (Mayor), the Olympics will last 14 days, my house is forever”
Barb de Souza – Brazil
A 9 year-old boy, Guilherme, who may lose his home in the near future made this poster for a protest march against the removal of 542 shanty town homes because of their proximity to the apartments where the athletes and their special quests will stay during the Pan American Olympics from the 12th of July to the 29th.
“Cesar Maia (Mayor), the Olympics will last 14 days, my house is forever”
In this simple poster he has shown his anger, his fear and sadness at the thought of losing his home, where he has lived since birth. It is not just his house, poor though it may be that he will lose but a way of life. A shantytown community builds its own culture and tries to find ways to answer its own needs, but the city does not respond, i.e., like building sewers, connecting electricity illegally, and constructing roads. He will lose his church in the shantytown, his friends and relatives, and the proximity to his father and mother’s job.
This is his life. The poor, when their homes are destroyed, for whatever purpose the rich want the land for, (in this case is so desirable for speculation), little money is given for the home for it will be torn down. It is certainly not enough for a decent home, but just another hut in another shantytown. In short, the life he has known all his life is being threatened.
We in the USA are a mobile society, but Brazil is not because of the culture of family and State laws. Moving from the family home, State because of the lack of development and city, are desperate moves for the poor to find work in the big cities, often leaving their wives and children until a job and a shantytown home are found. Their lives are uprooted for survival.
What else does this shantytown community have that Guilherme will lose that other shanty towns don’t have? And here is where you and I come in.
In the midst of poverty, our Association of Community Health Educators, have been able to build a spark of hope through our health teams of women who are dedicated to this community, this small shantytown of about 25,000 people. They have created an extended family feeling in the form of health workers who live among them, doctors and nurses, dedicated to bettering life in a place where people are accustomed to be stepped on, ignored, looked down on, who are accustomed to violence, impunity, and injustice with little recourse from authorities to solve their problems.
After the flood of February 1996, the shantytown near my home where I was working was one of the areas the hardest hit as it is situated on an open Canal. Emergency measures were needed; for homes were lost, mud and destruction were all around us, including the danger of illness from rats that were everywhere coming from the canal bringing diseases.
The groups I was teaching the community health educators training course to at the time, went to work with the health knowledge they had acquired at that time, including giving hundreds of vaccines against tetanus. We used the roof of one of the huts for a clinic and doctor friends of mine came to help treat the persons who had contracted diseases due to the flooding and found others, such as untreated HA and diabetes.
When the immediate damages were over, the community wanted us to continue being present for there were few health services in the area and what there were, were extremely deficient. And so we started. We began a community health education and prevention center on the roof top with the women from this health course and some volunteer doctors and nurses from the area. We held bazaars and bake sales to purchase medicines and then as support came from US churches, our first 3 room clinic was purchased.
Today, we have 3 buildings, 23 room health center and our legal Association of Community Health Educators has a contract with the City Health Department for the family health program. We have a staff of 37 women as well as volunteer psychologists. We are a reference for medical and nursing universities to visit and learn about the family health program.
Victory! Yes, and the staff works with dedication in spite of the limitations caused by the poor administration and corruption of the city officials, plus the misuse of funds and even diversion of funds meant for health purposes to the Pan American Olympics or the personal pockets of politicians. We lack sufficient medication and our hospitals are inadequate to care for emergency cases. In short, we lack for many things. After 4 years of requesting a dental team for which we added a room in our newest building, we were given permission to hire the team, BUT informed recently that the city does not have the funds to equip the program, such as supplying a compressor for the dentist chair. These are the promises we live with.
We also have many educational programs that I have written of in our newsletters, our latest being the Design and Creative Art program whose objectives are to keep children off the streets away from drugs and crime during the hours they are not in school. Children are only in school 4 hours a day and in this program they will get school help, develop art skills, educational games, group activities, and develop citizenship skills.
Many of the children come to this program hungry for there is no one at home to feed them. We are trying to find ways to supply snacks.
AND THIS ONE THING GUILHERME WILL LOSE FOR HE IS ONE OF THE CHILDREN BENEFITED IN THIS PROGRAM FOR CHILDREN FROM AGE 7 TO 14.
Our desire through this educational and art program for children is to that they too can build the self esteem necessary to build better lives for themselves and their families. (Self-esteem gained in our health course, for example, has changed lives. All of our health educators have at least a grammar school education now, some high school, 3 in college and two in a nursing University. Education is empowerment)
In the midst of corruption and violence, we are bringing hope and we have proved that with unity, we can accomplish a lot.
Example:
With this unity we haven succeeded in stalling off the removal of the 542 houses though after the Pan American Olympics, we must begin a new battle for urbanization of this shantytown.
END: Prayer by Sister Catherine Pinkerton
“May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you will live deep in your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people and the earth so that you will work for justice equity and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer so you will reach out your hands to comfort them and change their pain into joy.
And my God bless you with the foolishness to think that you can make a difference in the world so you will do things which others say cannot be done.”
Barb de Souza
Barb de Souza is a volunteer with the Institute of Religious Studies (ISER). She serves as an advisor for popular education and training in the areas of health and sexuality.