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BRAZIL-US: Social Activist Declined Invitation to Meet Bush

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 12 2007 (IPS) - Rodrigo Baggio, founder of one of the best social inclusion projects in Brazil, which has spread to eight other countries, turned down an invitation to meet President George W. Bush during his recent visit to Sao Paulo.

It was “a question of ethics,” he said, due to the lack of respect shown by the organisers of the visit, who wanted to impose extraordinary conditions for the meeting and who “invaded a ‘favela'” (shantytown) where his Committee for Democracy in Information Technology (CDI) runs an informal school, Baggio told IPS.

Over a month ago, the non-governmental organisation received a request from the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia to suggest one of the CDI’s Information Technology and Citizens’ Rights Schools (EIC) in Sao Paulo, to be visited by a “U.S. authority” who was not named.

CDI suggested a school in the Paraisópolis favela, which is home to around 84,000 people. On Feb. 7, the favela was “invaded” by 40 U.S. military troops and a number of Brazilian police officers, without advance warning or any explanation, Baggio said.

Apart from the disrespect this showed to local residents, it was a rash thing to do as it might have sparked shootouts with the drug traffickers and criminal gangs that operate in that neighbourhood, he said. “We wouldn’t have suggested that particular school if we’d known that it was President Bush himself who was to visit it,” he added.

Having ruled out a visit by Bush to Paraisópolis, the Children of Morumbi Association was selected instead. This social project opens new horizons for 4,000 poor children and teenagers from several Sao Paulo neighbourhoods through arts and sports activities, especially music.

Baggio and two other leading social activists were invited to talk with Bush in the course of the visit, which would be his last engagement in Sao Paulo on Friday evening, after his official meetings with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

But the executive director of CDI turned down the honour, and the opportunity to talk about his work and ideas to the leader of the world’s most powerful country, because of the incidents that had violated the “ethical values” he defends, and because he concluded that “it would not even be a brief dialogue.”

The organisers of the visit demanded a “rehearsal” beforehand, to prepare the “questions and answers” he would ask the president.

CDI and Baggio personally are always open to dialogue, even with Bush, as the president of a nation, in spite of his image being tied to the war in Iraq, “violence in the world,” and environmental negligence, because he withdrew from the Kyoto protocol, Baggio explained.

But the way preparations for the visit were conducted, with the “invasion” of Paraisópolis and the implied orchestration of the rehearsed meeting, led Baggio to decide not to attend.

Furthermore, Bush’s speech emphasising U.S. aid for social investment in Latin America was “in contradiction” with the decision to close the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) office in Brazil, which will only remain open this year to “finalise projects” that are still pending, Baggio said.

The invitation extended to Baggio was in recognition of the excellent work of CDI, which has created 701 EICs in almost every Brazilian state, and 179 in another eight countries – six Latin American nations as well as South Africa and the United States. Every year they train 70,000 information technology professionals.

As a member of the business community and an information technology teacher in Rio de Janeiro, Baggio began using computers to facilitate dialogue between young people from different social backgrounds in 1993. In 1995 he founded CDI to put information technology in the hands of poor communities, especially favelas, starting with used computers and later creating the informal schools, with the support of several companies.

The initiative, which uses the teachings of Paulo Freire, author of “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, and a literacy teaching method that respects local culture, expanded beyond his expectations. Regional centres were created to coordinate the network of EICs, and the project has won several international awards.

Nearly 40 percent of CDI’s budget comes from foreign sources, including U.S. foundations.

One success story is that of Ronaldo Monteiro, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for kidnapping a businessman in the 1990s. Locked in a maximum security jail, he participated in one of CDI’s courses for prison inmates. He became a teacher, and then a coordinator of the courses.

He later founded his own non-governmental organisation for prisoners to provide information technology services, earning income to help support their families. When he was released he carried on in the community, to help former prisoners like himself integrate back into the world of work, and encouraging them to start up their own small companies. “Now his chief supporter is the businessman he kidnapped,” Baggio said.

The transformation brought about by CDI also works at the community level. In a favela in the northeastern state of Paraíba, an EIC created three years ago not only trained information technology workers, but was instrumental in the recovery of local people’s traditional source of income.

The habit of dumping rubbish among the mangroves had resulted in the disappearance of the crab population, which was important locally for food and trade. EIC students used their new knowledge of information technology to launch an environmental education campaign, and in four months people stopped polluting the mangroves and the crabs came back.