Rio+20: Open Your Eyes

Jean Paul shared his ideas on 'Global Rock Star' Music Contest. 

Side Event: Empowering Youth Leadership for a Sustainable Future

Several youth leaders were invited to share their projects on Rio+20 that were effectively mobilizing young people via music, spoken word and social media. The speakers were representatives from Rio+20 Global Youth Music Contest, tcktcktck Rio+20 Make a Date with History Contest, The Captain Planet Foundation and The Earth Charter. 

I learnt about the Rio+20 global youth music contest via Facebook, where Mika Vanhanen from ENO Tree Planting Programme posted a song 'Act Now! Forest Matters' in that music contest and won the Jury Award. Guess a lot of 'like's were collected throughout the competition. 

On the event I have the opportunity to listen to the big hand behind all these campaign or competitions, one of them is Jean Paul the global coordinator for this music contest. He said, how to make young people in rural area to be engaged with the Rio+20, if they have no internet access? activities among the community play important roles for youth participation. If the countries leaders are talking about solutions, the youth ourselves could help to create more solutions to the challenges facing our planet. Therefore to spark youths' creativity, enthusiasm and innovation, it is our responsibly to educate and empower more young people to be leaders of sustainability. The music contest is one of them. 

Indeed youth could really help a lot to spread messages of global issues, as well as interconnect them in human services and social action. Today's youth talks about volunteerism because they are aware of the problem that exists around them and they show much concern. If people are not aware, do not have compassion towards the global issues, because they are living in their own circle, their world. However, Dalai Lama once said, for every being around us we are interconnected. Ignorance can stop us once to see truth, but it won't stop us from being affected by itself. 

Do you remember, the girl who gave a 3 minutes shocking speech in front of world leaders in Rio+20 this time? She is Brittany Trilford! The 17-year-old New Zealander has actually won in the tcktcktck's competition of 'A Date with History', an online video speech competition which grant her the opportunity to speak in front of the world! What is tcktcktck? A Global campaign for climate action. You see, we all are actually powerful -- and creative. Gandhi said, be the change. There're people out there doing changes! and this is one of the example, using social media to make a movement. Incredible man! 

Feeling amazed with the youth leaders who were speaking on stage, about their enthusiasm and inspiration to other people, I hope one day I could be one of them to inspire people too. However, today, I am preparing myself and doing my part. We learn and share our methods and solutions. We could have a Captain Planet or many many captains to steward the planet, as long as there're continuation works being push forward generations and generations to understand and love the natural world we are live in. 

One common thing for these youth leaders and their representing international organizations is: they are on grassroots level, they walk into the homes, schools and communities that bring education of sustainable development directly. 

It's like a gathering for these heads to meet each other from different parts of the world. One good thing of this event is I got to know these great, dedicated people - like the objective of this event, I am truly empowered and inspired. 

The Speakers:

JJ Hurtak, PhD., and Desiree Hurtak, Ph.D Academy for Future Science, South Africa

Christina Stevens, Executive Director, Captain Planet Foundation

Catherine Skopic, Educator Arts and the Environment, Anglican Consultative Council

Nora Mahmoud, International Youth Facilitator, Earth Charter International

Karoline Buys, Youth Coordinator, Academy for Future Science, South Africa

Manish Joshi, Partner Outreach Director, Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA)

Ann Hughes, Kid Spirit Magazine

Jean Paul Brice Affana, Global Coordinator, Rio +20 Global Youth Music Contest

For your information:

ENO Tree Planting Day A huge tree planting network based in Finland, now move in many schools and many countries. Moving forward planting 100 million trees this year! 

 Earth Charter International

Earth Charter International has been a voice for the earth since the original Rio Conference and continues to network its wisdom around the globe offering free online courses for young people on sustainability, ethics, and leadership which can now include the outcomes of UNCSD/Rio+20.

 tcktcktck.org

a Date With History/tcktcktck is an organization which clearly understands that time is running out unless we are all willing to make the critical changes which Rio+20 will encourage. The networking of these groups together will enhance their efforts and magnify their voice to empower the youth globally.

A record of the day: 'Open Your Eyes' Milena and Radu (Romania)

See the gentle waters flow

On the crystal sand below

Hear them echo as the sailors row-row-row

To the north, the golden seeds

Never seem to fail our needs

As long as the sun will shine

We will all be fine-fine-fine

We just came here today

We feel so happy to say

Open your eyes and see the stars

Why can’t we just heal all the scars

Poluiton war and violence

Why do we all stay in silence

It’s about time you realize

You need to open your eyes

See the mountains way up high

Reaching far into the sky

Scraping clouds where only birds can fly-y y y

We’re waiting for the day when we

Will learn to live in harmony

All the peace and love we’ve found

Can make the world go round round round

We live on a green land

Its beauty has no end

Open your eyes and see the stars

Why can’t we just heal all the scars

Poluiton war and violence

Why do we all stay in silence

We can make it all work

We should stay together and be all so strong

Peace should guide us;

Love beside us

If we try together

we can make everything better

For us…

If we just open our eyes....

Rio+20: 3rd Preparatory Meeting

Impressive G77 representative - Mr. Bangladesh spoke in 3rd Preparatory Meeting - SDGs.

The United Nations General Assembly launched a preparatory process for the Conference on sustainable development (UNCSD) in Rio, Brazil for June 2012 through resolution 64/236 on 29th December 2009. The three objectives of the Conference that took place in a particularly tense economic and social context are to:

- Secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development,

- Assess the progress to date and the remaining gaps in the implementation of the outcomes of the major summits on sustainable development, and 

- Address new and emerging challenges

Two main themes were identified to achieve them:

- The green economy in a context of sustainable development and poverty eradication

- The institutional framework for sustainable development

The General Secretary of the United Nations, Bn Ki-Moon, nominated Mr. Sha Zukang of China as General Secretary for the Conference. There were two sessions of Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting took place in May 2010 and March 2011 respectively. The final PrepCom meeting, which was the one I attended, took place in Rio, just one week before the official Conference. 

In year 2012, a zero draft was published in January with the title 'The Future We Want' after a calling for proposals from Member States in order to draft a joint declaration that can be adopted at Rio. However, the presentation of the preparatory declaration document 'went slowly' as it was a complex, inaccessible process. There were disagreements arose during the review of amendment texts made by States, for example, the monologues between developed countries like United States and Canada versus developing countries like G77-China went on and on whereby each delegate stood firm in their respective position in a Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Meeting. 

Supposedly the negotiation sessions should have been done earlier for the outcome text are as finalized as possible for the start of the official Rio conference, so that there would be little left to renegotiate at the Summit itself. Ideally, we expected at least 80% of the text approved before the Conference but we still observed that the progress went slow -- because the negotiators do not have the political mandate needed to make significant concessions, and therefore stand firm on their positions-- which made the whole progress lagged. Only if the representatives have more concise positions, they could make further progress. 

Madam Arsu, one of the eight Malaysian Official Delegates from Economy Planning Unit, told me that in one of the preparatory meetings. The principle of 'common but differentiated responsibility', in particular in relation to climate negotiations, for example, is much less prominent as it is highly controversial. The negotiation process, as I recalled, was highly intense. Bangladesh was the spokesperson for G77. In the context of Sustainable Development Goals which will replace Millenium Development Goals in 2015, he said that modernization is not something that we should follow but it's a life changing process. He wanted to ensure the 172 countries were not excluded from the decision made in the SDGs. He even fed-up with the incorporation of developed countries and requested all G77 'to go out of the hall now'. 

I was glad to be able to meet the Malaysian Official Delegation (They are from various departments, i.e. Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications, Economy Planning Unit and Prime Minister's Office). They were quite nice but due to Secretacy Act, they couldn't disclose much of their position to me though I've offered my help for them.

Also, I met one of the Rio+20 Fellow from the Adopt A Negotiator Project -- Chris Wright, a young Australian who's doing his study in Borneo. He was very active and energetic during the conference -- I saw him occasionally in one of those days. Since he was interested in following Malaysia's and Indonesia's negotiation, I introduced him to our Malaysian Delegation and talked about writing articles upon our meeting! 

It was a good opening to my journey in Rio+20 indeed.

It's very common for observers to sit on the ground  and listen to the negotiation process. Chris Wright from Adoptanegotiator.org is next to me.

Useful link:

www.adoptanegotiator.org

www.uncsd2012.org 

Rio+20: All the ingredients for the future we want

Sand Castle pledge for the future we want: Rio+20 at Copacabana beach. 

Sue Riddlestone and Freya Seath, BioRegional

A coalition of the willing

Every country and interested member of civil society will be reviewing the Rio+20 Outcome Document and thinking ‘what shall we do next?’  Although light on concrete commitments, there are enough ingredients to create a future we want. As one of the two Rio+20 Executive Coordinators, Brice Lalonde, stated, “we can go forward with a coalition of the willing”, a coalition BioRegional and its partners will join. After nearly two years of Rio+20 involvement, BioRegional is keen to play its part as expert practitioner on sustainable living. Developed over 20 years, BioRegional was set up to co-create and implement sustainable communities, products and services, enabling the achievement of One Planet Living in cost effective ways.

SCP, sustainable cities and human settlements

BioRegional made a voluntary commitment for Rio+20 to train 10,000 people to use the One Planet Living framework. The agreement at Rio+20 to adopt the 10 Year Framework Programme (FWP) on sustainable consumption and production (SCP), outlined in paragraphs 224-6 of the Outcome Document, could help to spread civil society implementation initiatives such as this.

Many nations have asked Bioregional to help them build sustainable one planet communities in their countries. A Rio+20 commitment was made to work with a favela community in Rio to develop an aspirational programme of good living within planetary means. A workshop held last weekend with residents resulted in lots of ideas to improve their neighbourhood and identified numerous green job opportunities. The UN friends of sustainable cities initiative and UN Habitat would be well suited to support the text on this subject in paragraphs 134-7. In addition, paragraph 125 on sustainable energy provides an important interrelated area for implementation.

Green Economy and Environmental-Economic Accounts

Practical experience tells us that if you set out to deliver sustainable living within the natural limits of the planet, a huge array of new economic opportunities present themselves. The workshop in the favela is a case in point. Paragraphs 56-75 set out important principles for a green economy.

Implementing One Planet Living generally starts with measuring impacts and available resources. As Helen Clark, Director of UNDP put it at their ‘beyond GDP’ side event on Wednesday, ‘governments need better indicators to make better decisions’. Ms Clark also reminded us of social progress indicators such as the UN Human Development Index. Paragraph 38 asks the UN Statistical Commission, with UN bodies, to develop broader measures of progress to complement GDP. The System of Environmental Economic Accounts (SEEA) as agreed in Agenda 21 could support such a development. This can also contribute to measuring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) once they are established. Commitment to this has already been demonstrated this week by 57 governments at the UK High Level dialogue on Natural Capital accounting on Wednesday. That is 30% of the United Nations!  On Thursday the USA and Brazil also committed to SEEA.

Leadership with participation of civil society

The commitments to SEEA demonstrate how it is now up to governments to show leadership in implementation – but not alone. Creating the future we want will only happen through partnership between business and civil society – something which has come out clearly in paragraphs 42-55. In this regard, it is worth noting that more businesses attended Rio+20 than any other previous UN summit.

SDGs

The SDGs are found in paragraphs 245-250. These will presumably be developed as part of a post-2015 framework. Hence most countries may likely wait until then to implement them. BioRegional has championed the SDGs since their conceptual inception as a powerful step forward in conceptualising the future and its development potential. In addition to their novelty, the SDGs complement BioRegional’s ten simple One Planet Living principles. Together, SDGs and the One Planet Living principles could create a common language for sustainability.

The Outcome Document provides a framework for national action. As we all know, this meeting in Rio is not the end, but a beginning of the next stage on our journey to deliver on sustainable development. BioRegional, and others from civil society, look forward to working together to create ‘The Future We Want’.

More information

Sue Riddlestone ( sr@bioregional.com)
Freya Seath ( freya.seath@bioregional.com)

Read paper smart articles on stakeholderforum.org

Congress in the Forest 6: The 20 Solutions for Sustainable Future

Youth delegates work on their favourite solutions, develop and put them into the '20 Solutions for Sustainable Future'. 

When it almost came to the end of the Congress, there were outcomes produced by young people through discussions and debates in each workshop and roundtables. There were ideas emerged from the young minds that helped to transform the nations and the world into a better place. So one of the product is called The 20 Solutions. 

Above all the things we have learned and discussed, the young people gathered together and we were about to share the 20 solutions WE want. While being optimistic to deliver our message of the sustainable future we want, we cannot put our faith in one UN conference. The first conference was started 20 years ago, but our countries' leaders are still working on the old solutions -- we want to see change, we want what we need for our future generations! 

Since the high-level government representatives cannot give us a promising future, the youth gathered here, proposed and discussed about 20 solutions that must be urgently be addressed during Rio+20. We saw young men and women from Europe,  U.S, Latin America, middle east, Asia, Africa expressed their concerns despite there are limitations to achieve these targets. However, it's better than doing nothing. People came here not for other reasons, we learnt what is going wrong with our current governments and politics, yet we also talked and revealed what are the difficulties and realities happened in our home countries -- we revealed the obstacles faced by our own youth and we represented our young people to admit that -- there's lack of sense of urgency for our government to put forth effective solutions for a sustainable development. 

Though we had many discussions -- some ended in the early morning -- I observed that youth from western countries voice their opinions in a justifying manner, they will give a statement and tell us why this but not that. Relatively, Asian were not so active, perhaps disadvantage in language --as well as the exposure to the youth on issues of sustainable future and campaigns-- are not much, or be concerned? However, if everyone speaks too much, it will end up with just talks only, and it's lagging -- which left the note taker to do the rest of the job to decide what is what in the end. 

After so many hours, the restless 20 solutions team have finally came out with a declaration. Without them, we won't achieve this - the outcome of the World Youth Congress - the 20 solutions for a sustainable future. Nicolo Wojewoda, the coordinator for this 20 solutions working group, had done a great job in engaging youth to participate in the discussion. His patients and dedication touched many of our hearts, which is why we believe that we, as a youth, can contribute, can make a little difference, can influence more people who didn't know about this, to join us and move forward. Please, read the brief outcome of this '20 solutions', and continue join us for the post 20 solutions- make it happen in our countries where me and you reside in. 

6 World Youth Congress:

 Below is our declaration (in catch phase) of 20 solutions. 

The time for statements, petitions and lobbying is over.
This is an action plan.
We, the youth of the world, are occupying the future we want with these 20 solutions.
Our message to governments: you have failed us! You can work with us or be dragged along by us.

The world we currently live in lacks equity, justice and sustainability.
We invite the youth of the world to confront this.
Act now and reclaim the future for generations to come.
Act now and make these solutions your own.

1. Put sustainability at the center of education
2. Let youth lead governments, corporations and society into sustainability.
3. Make it easy for youth to start businesses by providing capital, tax-breaks and reducing administrative bureaucracy.
4. Redesign our economy to be sustainable and to make people happy by moving away from insatiable consumption practices.
5. Shift to the use of renewable resources, and effectively make use of non-renewable resources to make this happen.
6. Make the best use out of energy – be efficient.
7. Reduce your footprint, soundly manage the waste you leave.
8. Sustain what all life is based on – water.
9. Enforce regulations against pollution, exploitation and degradation of our oceans.
10. Recognize the realities and impacts of climate change, take responsibility, demand accountability and act to reduce emissions.
11. Recognize the links between development and vulnerability to natural disasters, to integrate place-based disasters risk reduction and sustainable development.
12. Demand biodiversity conservation, the ending of mass species extinction and habitat degradation.
13. Recognize ecocide as a crime against humanity and nature.
14. Respect the right to healthcare.
15. Produce food for people and the plant, not just for money.
16. Restrict transnational corporations power over food systems.
17. Recognize gender empowerment and freedom of sexual and gender choice in a society free of discrimination.
18. Promote democratic youth representation amongst societies’ decision-making processes.
19. Make the world a non-conflict zone lead by youth peacemakers.
20. Acknowledge that the respect of human rights is integral part of sustainable development.

These 20 Solutions for a Sustainable Future were completed by youth delegates to the 6th World Youth Congress 2012, which took place in Rio de Janeiro 4-13th June, just before the historic UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) got underway.

Us youth demand action and the implementation of these solution – ACT NOW

View the Youth Declaration of 20 Solutions for a Sustainable Future. 

选择 choice

最近看了一本书，叫着‘牧羊少年奇幻之旅’。故事是描述一个牧羊少年为了寻找本身的‘天命’，那就是梦里所指的藏在埃及金字塔附近的宝藏，而卖掉他的羊然后踏上非比寻常的旅程。期间他遇见国王，英国人，炼金师，阿拉伯女孩等，最终聆听自己的心声而寻得宝藏，并和心爱的女孩在一起。

这本书的主题是说，如果你想要某些东西，整个宇宙都会联合起来帮助你去达成它。

看了之后我想了很多，一来觉得此书与我很相应，而来我知道我将会走比较不是很顺畅的路。我可能会像少年般失去金钱，离开家园，被敌人关起来，但是如果我找到我的心，聆听它要告诉我的秘密，或许我也会寻找到属于我自己的宝藏。

或许路很遥远，崎岖，和循规蹈矩的人生不一样，但是，我愿意尝试去赌一赌，走一段我觉得快乐的人生。 

每个人都有属于自己的‘天命’，就看你是否要实现它，或者是遗忘它。

Congress in the Forest 5: Youth Blast!

Though it was supposed to be the action project day 3 in Favela Penha, I decided to attend Youth Blast in Centro before it came to the closing day. 

Youth Blast was located at SulAmerica Convention Center. We took a van from Sitio de Pedras (our congresssite) to RioCentro, a city bus from Rio centro to Centro Novo and changed to a metro arrived at Estacio station (literally means 'Parking'). City buses are cheap, plentiful and go just about everywhere, with stops along all the main road. The bus rate to every destination is about the same - 2.75Reais one direction, -or 2.85Reais for air-conditioned bus. So, despite long journey (almost 2 hours) from RioCentro to SulAmerica Cenvention Center, we experienced how fast the bus driver drove his bus - and stopped the bus very quickly - which made me sick. Though English is not a popular language in Brazil, we still managed to find our direction to our destination - Brazilian are very friendly to help us even though we couldn't communicate with each other smoothly.

Youth Blast was an official Conference of Youth, a youth preparatory meeting for Rio+20 organised by the Major Group Children and Youth (MGCY) under United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD). This event was aimed at empowering young people to effectively participate in Rio+20 and its processes. 

Many visions generated by youth for the future we want. Vote for three visions you want. A world without fossil fuels? Life cycle analysis for all energy procurement? There are solutions, why are we not implementing them? What are we waiting for?

Sustainable Production and Responsible Consumption: we all  have the responsibility to supervise and ensure our product consumption is sustainable and responsible to our nature. It doesn't begin from our government, but ourselves. We are the biggest consumers for meat and fossil fuel but we don't know how to return our nature. 

Nicolo Wojewoda's facilitating the '20 solutions' workshop to work out the 20 solutions for Sustainable Development.

Chris Castro, the Executive Director of IDEAS for US, gave his opinion on the SDG. 

This girl--I forgot her name, is very young (about 13 years old). She conducted a workshop on 'Water'.

A discussion on whether we should create a environmental organisation after UNEP, to create a operative council executive OR create one underneath UNEP? 

Four of the Eight Proposals of MGCY in Rio+20: Calling for ombudspersons at all levels, Upgrade of UNEP, Creation of Sustainable Development Council, Effective implementation and public participation in environmental decision-making. See full version in Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development (IFSD)

The kids from various countries contributed their drawings to voice out the things they want for the earth. 

 People from WYC came here to support the 20 solutions! 

There were not many participants attended the so called Official MGCY event... the conference hall was suddenly becoming too spacious. While in some rooms, workshops were fully attended, but some were left emptied. People come and go, come and go. The plenary hall was quite emptied all the time when we had a major discussion on the MGCY Objective working group. It was said that Youth Blast  failed to ignite youth outside (Read Youth Blast fails to ignite) since there were not many participation of youth. I personally thought there were not many Asian showed up at the conference, not only due to expensive flight expenses, but little knowledge about the Youth Blast event itself among the green circles,, not to mention how the publicity of this event reached to the media itself. 

I could say there were very very few people from Far East attended this event. Even there were a few Asian faces appeared, they were students who are studying in U.S, Canada or Europe countries, and representing some organisations from their universities. 

A new exposure. I ended my day by painting the banner to be exhibited at Rio+20!

Theme: Keep the oil in the soil, and the coal in the hole! 

This painting was made by an artist, this was where I met Kjell Kuhne from  Plant-for-the-Planet
He's been teaching in Kalimantan so I spoke Bahasa Malaysia with him~^^ 

Advanced readings: Major Group Children and Youth
Plant-for-the-Planet: Trees for Climate Justice: http://www.plant-for-the-planet.org/en/

创意市集(一）

好久没回来写中文的部落格了，今天就想拿一些在巴西拍的照片来写个心得分享。

某日，我和来自泰国的安约好去坐落于里约热内卢中央佛明哥（Flemingo)参与最后一天的‘人民峰会’，那是一个与‘里约+20’(Rio+20) 或 联合国可持续性发展会议同时进行的活动，但是却由人民及各种各样的非政府组织组成。 这个峰会不同于正式的里约+20，它是在户外，在没有空调下进行，而且人民可以免通过严格的保安自由进出场所，最重要的是在场的演讲者可自由发表演说（因为来这里的人不认同联合国的谈判过程及议程），集会者可以拉大布条喊口号示威, 还有许多人在那儿摆档口的艺术市集。今天我不想讨论严肃课题，只想分享当下的心情。

下一步。

自从巴西回来后，混淆我的问题包括乱七八糟的生理时钟（11个小时的时差实在是太大了！）。好不容易花了一个星期适应当地的时间后，我又得飞回来马来西亚重新调整时差回来。老实说，真的很不容易。。。在里约，明明觉得困了却是大白天；在大马，夜深了却还很精神，结果天亮后才入睡，醒后已是中午时分...好无奈，精神不振...

但是回想起来在那儿的日子挺有趣的，虽然有时候好“痛苦”，但是一旦问题解决后就没事了。过去23天遇到好多好人好事，正所谓生命中所发生的每一样事情都是好事，我真的觉得我在里约的经历实在是。。。太幸运了。是时候记录它们的故事了，否则对不起自己及十方大众给我的支持。

虽然文字有些不规整，但只要能看。。就行了吧？

星期日是普罗大众的市集日，各种各样的艺术家、普通市民齐聚一堂卖自己的艺术作品。除了佛明哥，我还看过日本人市区的集市。这是艺术市集其中一个摊子，都是卖各式各样有趣的手绘徽章，我特别喜欢地球的那一粒，1-4巴西里尔。

Buddha's Eyes T-衫，想不到也会在这里出现！他们的作品就向我姐那样制作美丽的心灵系列 （http://a-metta.blogspot.com/)，当然也有佛陀系列的衣服。 我还在其他摊位发现卖尼泊尔色彩缤纷的五色旗，香薰等等。一件衣服大概30里尔 （约RM45)。

地图！超喜欢这种古色古香的羊皮纸地图，和我在圣保罗朋友家的世界地图拼图长得很像。好想要一个啦~ 

巴西人要在这个消费昂贵的城市生活，他们也各想尽办法来让自己增加收入，周日集市就是其中一个例子，这也成为了许多家庭的家庭日好去处，在海边逛集市晒太阳，遛狗跑步等，总比大马人爱逛购物商场健康多了。

末了，晚安。

A Joke and Humour

There's a joke shared by Joachim Thaler in the Rio20 IFSD group that he just heard Gordon Brown tell on a TED talk (see "Gordon Brown on global ethic vs. national interest" -http://www.ted.com/talks/gordon_brown_on_global_ethic_vs_national_interest.html):

Three world leaders - Bill Clinton, José Barroso (president of the European Commission) and the UN Secretary General - get the opportunity to ask advice from God.

Bill Clinton begins and asks God when there will finally be successful action against climate change and a low-carbon economy. God shakes His head and answers: "Not this year, not this decade, maybe not even in your lilfetime." Bill Clinton starts to cry and walks away, deeply disturbed with this dire outlook.

So José Barrose walks up to God and asks: "When will we get a recovery of global growth?" God shakes His head and says: "Not this year, not this decade, maybe not even in your lilfetime." Barroso walks away in tears, crushed with disappointment.

Finally, the UN secretary general approaches God and asks: "When will our international institutions work?" --- And God starts to cry.

Haha, all the works still lie within our hands. Have a nice day! 

Congress in the Forest 4: A Shared Life in Favela

Mountain of Mercy

The first thing we did for our Action Project was to carry chairs and walk to a community hall in favela located along  Sierra da Misericordia (The Mountain of Mercy), the target community selected by the World Youth Congress with collaboration of Raízes da Tradição (Roots of Tradition institution),  Universidade da Juventude (University of Youth) and Info Jovem (Youth Info). Then, we had a background introduction about efforts that have been done by the local communty and ngos (and had it translated by Ana Paula Jones, general director of Raizes da Tradição) in this environment. 

No longer Natural look on the Mountain

The Mountain of Mercy covers approximately 43.9 km2 in Rio de Janeiro municipality. It is a major residential area for industrial activities such as cement and granite mining. However, there was no effective control programme for environmental destruction to the surrounding neighbourhood due to the increased number of quarries at the granite mining region. The rock formations of the sierra are composed of rare types of granite and it had been covered by dense rainforest - but today is in an advance state of degradation and  left only the coverage of grass. Besides loss of original vegetation, accelerated soil erosion and sedimentation, people who live at the slope of the mountain are also endangered. Such environmental impact had raise awareness for the local communities to work with the people's associations, groups and NGOs in order to restore and preserve its natural environment. 

So, we as the participants of the World Youth Congress had this opportunity to contribute something to the local community - even though we were not really familiar with the culture and lifestyle of the people living in the favela. There were a few working groups for us to choose: Permaculture, Tree Nursery, Ecotourism, Environmental Programme, World Cafe, Photography, Graffiti and Cultural programme. We chose our favourite action group and had discussion on what could we do in this particular section. I chose to be in the ecotourism action group. Since we did not have a clear picture of what had been done and not done by the local community and NGOs, we drafted out an idea of sending a proposal to mayor of Rio de Janeiro on how to develop and promote ecotourism in favela, espcially where there is a mountain for people to hike and cycle about. 

Though it was a bit misty in the day, me, Ezra (Singapore) and a few participants hiked the hill which took us roughly 30-45mins hour to the top - where we saw 2 granite quarries at the other side of the mountain and many houses built along the hillside, a typical scene of Rio de Janeiro. Because of granite extraction, the hill that we hiked was 'botak' (Malay word, means bald), left only long and firm grass which appeared as used to be burnt by local for us to hold  on...poor Ezra even cut his hand while going down the slope! 

The local people live their lives as usual. We saw people playing football on the hill, using horses to do their daily farming or transportation work, and pigs looking for food around - and of course, rubbish were spread elsewhere on the hill. I supposed there was a small dumping site but had just recently been cleared for our - maybe others' visit. 

I just learnt that these glasses were put there for... stopping people from climbing over the wall.

Presentation and briefing session before the projects started.

There are remaining of some granite stones, but the trees were gone.

A bald hillside of the mountain of Mercy. 

                                              A view from the hill top: a dense neighbourhood. 

Me and Patricio (Argentina) made friends with the local kids. 

About Favela

In the next day, we continued our action project at Favela Penha. I got to learn more about the favela from a local friend, Dudu. He told me that favelas are usually inhabited by poor people who are excluded from society - social inequality and poor income distribution in Brazil are the main reasons to the emergence of favelas. These favela are built at the edge of Rio, and they are expending it along the hillsides (I was surprised that the hills are fully occupied in the city by the typical shape of the favela houses, see the picture below). Usually the source of income of these people are from mothers and fathers who are engaged in societal primary functions, such as: working maid, janitor, bus drivers, cafeteria attendants, and other jobs. Some people own small businesses such as selling snacks, sewing factory, soccer schools and so on. The main problem in the best-known favelas of Rio de Janeiro is drug trafficking. It is done by some rebel groups  who lived underclass and need money to survive. Dealers (Mafia), rule the area and keep most favelas dwellers or even prisoners as hostage in exchange for exploration services. Though fires and gunshots were very common for decades in the favelas, these had been reduced in last several years after the setting up of UPP (Pacifying Police Unit) which aimed at reclaiming the territories on favela from the gangs. So it was still ok to walk in the favela, but we need to be guided. 

At the cultural festival arranged by the organisers, I observed that the kids like flying kite and running after it, besides playing football. For youth, they liked graffiti or some kind of vandalism (If they drew the paint badly in a private or public area). To fulfill the graffiti artists' desire to express, some local ngos or authority would make a space for them to paint the art, and repaint the wall and staircase after some time. Most children living in favelas are studying in government schools but there are many other children did not go to school and assist their families to generate income. The main cultural activities in the favelas are based on music like funk and samba and also football. There are many Brazilian musicians of samba born in the favelas and other poor places, such as Arlindo Cruz, Luiz Melodia, Zeca Pagodinho, Seu Jorge, Martinho da Vila, etc, and some players like Zico, Ronaldo dan Romario are also emerged from these poor places. Outsiders can learn more about life in the favela in this film called 'Cidade de Deus' (City of God), another film talks about the Mafia versus police in drug trafficking is "Tropa de Elite" (Elite Squad) - Dudu said it's a very nice movie and he had watched it for 2 times. For a romantic story, you can find out "Era uma Vez", a movie that talks about love between a rich girl and a boy from the Favela. 

Actually, I hope I can talk more with people live in the favela, but it seems that we had troubles to communicate - they don't speak English. So we ended the second day of Action project with local musics and samba festival performed by the local school and some of our members. 

Tadaaaa, I would like to congratulate Rio de Janeiro for being recognised as a World Heritage Site last Sunday (July 1) by the Cultural Heritage Committee of UNESCO for its cultural landscape value, which include Favelas as part of reason. Residents of Rio, also known as Carioca, are very proud of that. I hope the municipality of Rio de Janeiro could work harder to develop and improve the poor conditions in those favelas, as they are part of the society and have rights to be treated equally as well.  

Kids like to jump from one roof to other ones instead of walking in the narrow pavements.

Youth Solution: A joint program of many NGOs and local groups and authority. 

Energetic Samba dance by the samba school in Favela Penha. 

I am not vandalising the wall, I am doing Graffiti^^

The girls approached me and Kin and expressed their interest to know more about us.

Further read up:

Roots of Tradition: http://raizesdatradicao.uol.com.br

NGO's work in favelas: www.rioonwatch.org