Woman鈥檚 drive to turn Brazilian town green
Print Edition
At first glance, it looks like any other shantytown in Brazil: a precarious jumble of tin-roof shacks and shoddy streets. But look closer, the community garden, rainwater harvesting system and environmental education program are visible too: This 鈥渇avela鈥 is remarkably green.
On the outskirts of Sao Paulo, a concrete jungle of 12 million people, the impoverished community of Vila Nova Esperanca (Village of New Hope) is fighting to be a model of sustainable living.
The driving force behind the 鈥済reen favela鈥 is its leader Lia de Souza, elected a decade ago.
An irrepressible woman of 57, she moved here in 2003 to escape an abusive husband.
She soon set about turning the favela into the kind of place she wanted to call home: one where people respect the environment and each other, live sustainably and take care of their community together.
She has fought hard to make that a reality, sometimes against abusive police and authorities.
Ray of hope
Creating that home has been an ongoing struggle. But it has earned her the nickname 鈥淟ia Esperanca鈥 鈥 鈥淟ia of Hope,鈥 evoking her favela鈥檚 optimistic name.
鈥淲e have to come together to make this not-so-great place a really great place to live,鈥 she said, giving a tour of the organic garden she helped create.
She proudly pointed out the wealth of plants in the spice section: thyme, basil, turmeric, lavender, three kinds of mint.
Nearby, papaya trees and banana plants sprouted from the red soil, along with vibrant purple bougainvilleas and pink hydrangeas.
鈥淲e have all kinds of medicinal plants, too,鈥 said Souza, in her greenhouse full of seedlings.
Vila Nova Esperanca sits an hour from the Sao Paulo city center, carved out from the lush forest known as the Mata Atlantica.
The plants and flowers don鈥檛 stop it from looking a lot like the rest of the mega-city鈥檚 1,650 favelas: half-finished shacks line the dirt streets, tattered furniture sits outdoors, stray plastic bags drift in the air.
But the community of 3,000 people has won multiple awards for its environmental programs.
With her bare hands, Souza picked up fist-fulls of mud and slapped them onto the wall of a 鈥渂rinquedoteca,鈥 a children鈥檚 center with educational games and toys that she and the community are building.
The mix of clay and cement they are using 鈥渋s less expensive than bricks, and it鈥檚 sustainable,鈥 she said, her face smeared with mud.
鈥淲hen I arrived here, there was nothing,鈥 she said 鈥 not even electricity.
鈥淭oday, we have an amphitheater, a library, a communal kitchen, a pond where the children can swim and the garden, which just keeps growing.鈥
One of her acolytes, a civil engineer named Rodrigo Calisto, showed off a stone basin where he recently finished building a fish farm with the help of other volunteers.
The tilapia will provide food and eat mosquitoes, a vector for diseases such as dengue fever, he explained.
The community has also erected sandbag walls to protect itself from landslides.
Deadly landslides 鈥渁re a widespread problem in Brazil, because most favelas are built on hillsides,鈥 said Calisto.
He has also developed a system to collect and reuse rainwater.
鈥淣ature teaches us how to live. You don鈥檛 need to go to university,鈥 said Souza.
Fighting spirit
Souza鈥檚 grit has sometimes put her on a collision course with authorities.
Several years after moving to the favela, she learned officials were working to evict its residents, accusing them of building on protected land.
Swallowing her fear, she stood fast with her community the day police arrived, kicking and pepper-spraying residents in a failed attempt to evict them.
She says the city鈥檚 Housing and Urban Development Company has offered her money to leave.
But Souza is determined to stay.
Her latest challenge is the end of a municipal grant of 1,050 reals (about US$225) per month to pay residents to work on community projects.
The grant has been a godsend for the favela, where one worker in five is unemployed. But it is about to end.
鈥淧eople who live on the periphery have nothing. It鈥檚 going to be hard if the grant ends,鈥 she said. 鈥淏ut we鈥檙e not going to stop working.鈥
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