The identity of a community is a combination of its spaces and its people. A conscious sense of that identity and the ability to express it is a critical starting point for self- driven community improvement. Through an
experimental exercise using
visual and cognitive methods, women in a de-graded Brazilian favela experienced an awakening to the identity of their community and their place in it, gaining the confidence and tools - the empowerment - to realise they could lead change in their own environment.
a walk through the community: a visual path
embedded identity
urbanism | favela empowerment by giovana beltrao
The women of Rei do Gado live life in tight, narrow, degraded, crowded pathways without being consciously aware of their environment, or their potential power to leverage their lives and community out of the many impacts of poverty. The starting point had to be building a conscious awareness of their environment. They had to learn how to ‘see’ and thereby define and express an identity, their priorities and their aspirations. I had the technical knowledge to manage processes of urban intervention but I knew nothing about the community nor the women who lived there. The women knew their environment, but could not communicate this understanding. Neither were they aware that by doing so they could initiate change. The means of communicating values from both sides were not in line. Planners tend to think of standards, functionality and beauty first. Favela dwellers are focused on creating their own survival cocoon by whatever means possible. The rusting top of a non-functioning septic tank is an eyesore, source of pollution and indication of an unhealthy failed community to the planner. For the women, it was their most important and favoured gathering point. For Maria, with a smile,‘my falling apart roof allows me to see the stars’. We were on different levels of identification with that space.
A favela within a favela within a favela. Rei do Gado, a small informal settlement of 0.3 hectares and 600 people in the heart of Recife – a fast-growing metropolis of 3.5 million on Brazil’s northeast coast, was the result of a failed urbanisation process. Desperate for living space in the urban core, families finally occupied a swamp that earlier land invaders had considered uninhabitable. Out of sight and out of mind of city authorities already stretched by limited resources, the residents survived eviction from their narrow, muddy alleys and ramshackle, un- serviced shelters. Subsistence life in Rei do Gado continued for decades without thought of change, or at least without awareness that change was possible. For ten years I was one of Recife’s urban planners working in the city’s favelas to bring about community improvements. I saw formal government intervention fail and realised one of the major causes of failure was a communication disconnect between official ‘experts’ and the favela residents, the real experts. Planners imposed their professional perception of what was needed; residents lacked the tools to communicate their real priorities. A tool was needed to bridge that gap. I worked for six months with the women of Rei do Gado, the segment of the population most involved in the daily life of the community, to see if we could develop that tool.
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