Sustaining and Supporting Community Organizing Against Evictions: Strategies from Women Leaders of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo’s Favelas and Their Allies

11:15 AM, Room 304

In cities across Brazil, the threat of removal for favela communities has pervaded since the establishment of the original informal settlement in 1897. Local governments have implemented evolving tactics to pursue evictions, including misinformation, public service cancellation, environmental “areas of risk” claims, instigation of community conflicts, eminent domain, and forced “lightning” evictions. Favela women are particularly impacted by these pressures, and with the assistance of a growing network of NGOs, researchers, and coalitions, often lead resistance through creative and adaptive strategies to stall displacement and reinvest in their communities.

In this panel, Rio de Janeiro’s women favela leaders will discuss their initiatives to halt removals, employing memory, sustainability, and unity to strengthen social networks, physical infrastructure, and environmental health. They will describe Vila Autódromo’s resistance to the 2016 Olympic Village from a participatory community plan to the Museum of the Removals, Horto’s use of advocacy and the Horto Museum to advocate for their land, and recycling initiatives to reduce landslide risk in Morro dos Prazeres. This work will be contextualized in the historic struggle for the Right to the City in Rio’s favelas, and the formation of favela coalitions promoting sustainable and just living, such as the Popular Counsel and Sustainable Favela Network. Ongoing research on similar insurgent technical-political tools for resistance against forced evictions in São Paulo, as catalogued by the Observatory of Evictions will be presented, leading to an evaluation of the progress and challenges of emergent anti-eviction initiatives in Brazil.

Panel organizers

Maria de Penha Macena

• Maria da Penha Macena is a long-term resident of the Vila Autódromo waterfront community, in Rio de Janeiro’s West Zone. She has been a vocal leader for her community in the fight against removals, particularly in the run-up to the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. As a member of the local Residents’ Association, Maria organized residents, students from the local universities, and other allies to prepare a Popular Plan for the community, as an alternative to removals. The Plan won numerous international awards. Although the municipal government’s actions led to the eviction of over 600 families from Vila Autódromo, and physical harm to Maria da Penha and others, she continues to fight. Her latest initiative, as co-founder of the Museu das Remoções (Museum of the Removals), is to preserve the memory of her community, and continue to raise awareness and support for the fight to the Right to the City in Rio de Janeiro and beyond.

Emilia Maria de Souza

• Emília Maria de Souza is a leader in the Horto community, abutting the Botanical Gardens in Rio de Janeiro’s South Zone. She is the President of AMAHOR, the Horto Neighborhood and Friends Association, which has fought through a variety of strategies and coalitions to maintain the community’s land in the vicinity of high-income neighborhoods and vital natural resources. Emília is a co-founder of the Horto Museum, which the community sees as a tool to strengthen their battle against evictions. Additionally, she is a member of the Conselho Popular (Popular Council), a coalition of Rio de Janeiro’s favela leadership working since 2014 to create a common platform and movement for informal community residents’ Right to the City.

Zoraide Gomes

• Zoraide Gomes, also known as Cris dos Prazeres, is a community leader and organizer in Morro dos Prazeres, in Rio de Janeiro’s Central Zone. In 1998, Cris founded the community-based organization Prevenção Realizada com Organização e Amor - PROA (Prevention Realized Through Organization and Love), which has worked to address public health issues in the community, through community clean-ups and information campaigns about mosquito-borne diseases. After a severe landslide in 2010, Cris and PROA developed a community mapping project with the Center for the Promotion of Health (CEDAPS), a local NGO that works in the city’s favelas; UNICEF; and MIT. This work informed the founding of ReciclAção, an initiative to promote recycling, environmental education, and training surrounding natural disaster response and prevention strategies in Prazeres.

Theresa Williamson

• Theresa Williamson, Ph.D., is a city planner and founder and executive director of Catalytic Communities (CatComm), an NGO working since 2000 in support of Rio’s favelas. In addition to fostering strategic networking, training and communications support on behalf of community organizers, the organization has become known for advocating a community-controlled asset-based development approach to informal settlements, through Favela Community Land Trusts and CatComm’s Sustainable Favela Network. Theresa is an outspoken, respected advocate for the recognition of favelas’ heritage status and their residents’ right to be fully served as equal citizens. She has published several chapters, four op-eds in The New York Times, and has been cited in dozens of publications and television. Dr. Williamson received the 2012 NAHRO Award for her contributions to the international housing debate, 2018 American Society of Rio prize for her contributions to the city, and 2005 Gill-Chin Lim Award for Best Dissertation on International Planning. She is editor-in-chief of RioOnWatch, CatComm’s internationally recognized watchdog favela news service. Dr. Williamson earned her B.A. in Biological Anthropology from Swarthmore College and Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania.

Karen Narefsky

• Karen Narefsky is a former Organizer at SCC and Union United member and is currently a Tenant Organizer at Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) in New York City.

Talita Gonsales

Talita Gonsales is an Urban and Environmental Engineer with a Master in Planning and Management of the Territory at the Federal University of ABC (UFABC), and a Ph.D. candidate in the same program. Talita is also a Researcher at the Laboratório da Justiça Territorial at UFABC (Land Justice Laboratory) and the Observatório das Remoções at the University of São Paulo and UFABC (Observatory of Evictions). Her latest research explores forms of resistance to forced evictions and alternative practices of planning.

Leonel Lima Ponce

Moderator: Leonel Lima Ponce, Registered Architect (NY), is the Acting Academic Coordinator of Pratt Institute Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment’s MS in Sustainable Environmental Systems (SES) program, where he is also a Visiting Assistant Professor. Mr. Ponce holds an MS in Urban Environmental Systems Management from Pratt Institute, and a B.Arch from The University of Texas in Austin. He is a founding member of participatory resilience design collaborative ORLI+. His work concentrates on fostering partnerships for sustainable and resilient design, infrastructure, and development through community-based engagement and design strategies, with an emphasis in New York City and his home city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.