Though Vitoria-Gasteiz, capital of the Basque Country, was elected the European Green Capital of 2012 – an award presented by the European Union to promote and reward efforts to mitigate climate change – Spain still has a long way to go to earn the label of ‘sustainable’ for others cities around the country.

The air that the citizens of Vitoria-Gasteiz breathe is of the highest quality, according to the score given by the European Union, thanks to campaigns to increase bicycle use around the city and the promotion of a new bus network together with tram routes and new parking regulations.

In contrast, cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla or Bilbao have been consistently exceeding standard levels of pollution as a result of a lack of environmental planning and a long drought.

“The necessary ingredients of a sustainable city are social inclusion and environmental quality in a dense, compact and diverse area with (democratic) participation in decision making,” Luís Jiménez, director of the Observatory on Sustainability in Spain (OSE), told IPS.

“In the developed world, cities determine to a great extent (a country’s) consumption pattern of materials and energy as well as territory. (Urban areas) contribute 75 percent of the planet’s pollution and use 70 percent of energy consumed by mankind,” he added.

As economic, cultural and social centres, cities provoke critical internal and external environmental impacts that cause serious ripple effects for other – mostly rural – systems, which, in Spain, comprise 90 percent of the land.

Ignacio Santos, an environmental expert currently working as a technical assistant for the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), points out two key factors in measuring environmental advances or degeneration in Spanish cities: firstly, residents’ quality of life (which is tied to the quality of the urban environment) and secondly, an ‘ecological footprint’.

In terms of air quality, it is worth noting that approximately 87 percent of the Spanish population breathes ‘polluted air’, as defined by the World Health Organization.

This has resulted in 16,000 premature deaths annuallyand led to the proliferation of various respiratory diseases.

“In Spain, the process of industrialisation and urbanisation has degraded quality, particularly in urban centers. It is crucial to reinforce the public’s capacity for action against atmospheric pollution and to take decisive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with integrated health, environmental and climate change policies,” Jiménez stressed.

According to Luis González, a member of Ecologistas en Acción, the main reason behind air quality degeneration in the cities is increased traffic, which directly emits particles in suspension from precursors (carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides or methane) that make up tropospheric ozone.

Sadly, “Local authorities have just denied the problem or moved the measure stations. There are no programs aimed at reducing traffic and insufficient awareness of the use of different means of transport, such as the bicycle,” González told IPS.

The ‘ecological footprint’, a reliable methodology designed to measure human impact on the planet, essentially maps humans’ demand for natural resources and contrasts it against the Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate those resources. According to the Ecological Footprint Atlas (2010), a publication from the Global Footprint Network, Spain has the 19th largest eco-footprint per person in a list of 153 countries.

Spain’s ecological footprint has grown by an annual average of 0.1 global hectares per person since 1995, according to the report Global Change Spain 2020/2050. By 2005 there had been an increase of 19 percent, which meant that the necessary ecological territory to produce resources and assimilate the residue produced by each Spanish person in 2005 was 6.4 global hectares per person.

“Therefore we are living beyond our means. If we want cities with quality of life and minimum impact, we have to ensure that our ecological footprint does not exceed our available biocapacity. Technological measures to improve efficiency in the use and production of resources are not enough to achieve that. The main challenge is to achieve a great change in current consumption habits,” Jiménez concluded.

Some experts believe it is necessary to rethink ‘urban metabolism’ as a means of reducing a country’s ecological footprint and improving air quality as well as other environmental aspects.

In the past few decades, territorial and urban planning based on unlimited and indiscriminate real- estate growth has been promoted.

This programme has been supported by a series of contradictory legislations: several regions’ urban regulations placed an upper limit on building densities, but in no case were these regulations enacted.

“It is important to have a clear idea of what kind of model of city we are talking about,” said Santos. “Sustainable cities are not those which are built with a lot of houses nor those full of big buildings and without green spaces,” he added.

“For example,” Santos told IPS, “Madrid’s metropolitan area is a model of a big city developed in an uncontrolled and dispersed way. New neighborhoods without an underground transport service are still being designed while there are a large number of empty houses in the city centre.”

An expansive city with a low building density and territorial dispersion in urban services needs more transport infrastructure, more energy consumption and takes up more land surface. All those factors affect the environment and increase greenhouse emissions, with a severe impact on air quality, climate change and acoustic pollution, among others – all of which affect the quality of life of citizens and other surrounding social and natural systems.

Also, a city without parks and green belts means a lack of trees to absorb pollution and reduce the impact of noise.

Dealing with all of these issues requires adapting the city to the limits of biocapacity, while aiming for sustainability.

“If we are in a relative situation of sustainability improvement, as a result of the economic crisis, this does not mean that a clear effort to change unsustainable growth (patterns) exists,” Jiménez stressed.

Current development trends in Spain are intrinsically incompatible with the planet on which we live, which has finite resources that are dwindling faster than at any other time in human history.

Stressing the urgency of the situation, Santos urged “not only need political will, but also scientific knowledge. To design and implement policies, it is necessary to have planners, decision makers and citizens with the carbon cycle constantly on their minds.”

(END)

Forget about finding Cantarrana on a map or travel guide to Cuba. “Nobody knew about us; we didn’t exist,” said one resident of this working-class neighbourhood on the west side of Havana.

"I think my mural is the best," says Caridad Acosta. Credit: Patricia Grogg/IPS

Cantarrana, which means “frog croaks,” is so called because these critters used to fill the streets when heavy rains would cause nearby rivers to overflow.

But a street full of art – instead of frogs – has drawn attention to the neighbourhood, and is bringing about a change in the local residents. “Now people feel important and proud to live here,” Aleida González, a 47-year-old mechanical engineer who was born at No. 4405 63rd Street, commented to IPS.

Her home is one of the few on the block that do not have murals painted on their outside walls. “I prefer to care for the plants on my terrace, but I must admit that this idea of artists displaying their work on our homes has improved the image of our street. The neighbours are taking more of an interest in taking care of their walls, and there is more respect among everybody,” she said.

The participating artists came together in a project supported by the International Committee for the Development of the Peoples (CISP), an Italy-based NGO that has been working in Cuba for 20 years.

“It began two-and-a-half years ago, and is showing what can be done,” Eduardo Lima, who recently stepped down as the neighbourhood’s official representative after 12 years in office, told IPS.

“I think there are many social benefits, because it has even improved people’s moods; they’re happy because their street looks nice. Relations have improved in the community, and people are more sociable and interested in working together,” said Lima.

He said he hopes the idea will spread beyond Cantarrana, which borders Puentes Grandes, another neighbourhood in the Playa municipality on the outskirts of the capital. “For now we are going to focus on this street, which has 300 residents, look after it and make it an example of what can be done,” he said.

Inspired by the project, some neighbours have taken up painting under the guidance of the professionals. “This is a population group that was considered somewhat marginalised and isolated, and now they feel better because somebody is thinking about them,” said Miguel Angel González Pi, one of the artists involved in the teaching.

“It has been an incredible experience. This is the first time I’ve painted in the open air, with a wall as my canvas. Besides, the locals have showed us a lot of trust and affection, and they’re always willing to support and participate,” said Isabel María Llamas, a self-taught artist with 10 years of experience.

According to Paola Larghi, the CIPS representative in Cuba, the project is unique in that it did not emerge from the community, but was “somewhat induced” by the artists. “However, the people began getting increasingly involved in fixing up their houses, even contributing materials, which are not easy to obtain here,” she said.

In her opinion, another positive result of the project is that people now have a better appreciation of the visual arts and take better care of their surroundings. “There has been a real impact on improving hygiene, sanitation and the environment in the community,” said Larghi, who described the project as a “small spark” that lit other, broader fires.

Some of the other new undertakings by the CIPS include “Espacio Abierto” (Open Space), which seeks to promote transformative actions through art in several underprivileged neighbourhoods in the Playa municipality, joined progressively by local cultural institutions and groups of young people interested in community work.

“Our experience in Cuba led us to decide that socio-cultural development would be our sphere of action, and that art had an important role as a tool for transformation,” Larghi said during a forum on the subject held during the 14th Italian Culture Week in Havana, Nov. 21-27.

Cuban architects like Mario Coyula back the idea of active citizen participation in the challenges involved in rebuilding an urban environment hit by the accumulated deterioration of the last five decades. In a recent article about the city of Havana, Coyula said it was necessary to take advantage of the potential offered by public spaces “to create a sense of belonging.”

In statements to IPS, Italian Ambassador Marco Baccin said that Italian cooperation with Cuba included support for restoration projects in the Old Havana historical district, as well as social initiatives and renewable energy programmes.

Baccin said that Cuban-Italian relations were very good in every sense, including a successful Italian Culture Week. Political relations between the two countries are quite smooth, as is the dialogue on bilateral and international issues of common interest.

“Within the European Union, Italy takes a position that is very favourable to opening up the possibility of a new framework for relations with Cuba,” he said.

By Edgardo Ayala and - -
SAN SALVADOR, Nov 18 2011 (IPS)

In a country where hard-line policies have failed to make a dent in soaring levels of violent crime, Salesian priest José María Moratalla has produced good results by offering educational and vocational opportunities to juvenile offenders and young people at risk of falling into crime.

Moratalla, who is better known as Padre (father) Pepe, is the founder of the Instituto Técnico Obrero Empresarial Don Bosco (ITOE), a technical school that provides primary, secondary and vocational education to 450 youngsters from the violent slums on the outskirts of the capital of El Salvador.

“We want to give a chance to those who don’t have any,” the priest told IPS. The institute and small and medium-sized cooperative businesses set up by former students are located in the heart of Iberia, a vast shantytown on the northeast side of San Salvador.

“A few days ago a body was dumped across the street, not far from where the soldiers patrolling the community are posted,” Padre Pepe said, to illustrate the levels of violence and impunity in the area.

El Salvador, which has a murder rate of 62 per 100,000 inhabitants, is the most violent country in the world, according to the “Global Burden of Armed Violence 2011” released in late October by the Small Arms Survey, an independent research project based in Geneva.

El Salvador is followed by Iraq – occupied by U.S.-led forces since 2003 – and Jamaica.

By comparison, the global average is nine homicides per 100,000 people. And according to the World Health Organisation, any country with a murder rate above 10 per 100,000 people is suffering an epidemic of violence.

The Small Arms Survey found that one-quarter of all violent deaths between 2004 and 2009 occurred in just 14 countries that have homicide rates above 30 per 100,000 population. Of these countries, half are in the Americas.

Since 1999, three successive Salvadoran governments have implemented “strong-arm” or “zero tolerance” policies without success against the increasingly powerful youth gangs known as “maras”.

Under these policies, young people can be arrested simply for sporting tattoos that distinguish them as gang members, or for using certain hand signs to communicate. But experts say the policies have failed because they have not included social reintegration efforts.

President Mauricio Funes, who took office in 2009 as the candidate of the leftwing guerrilla movement-turned-political party Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), has followed the same policies, and has even put army troops on the streets to carry out joint patrols with the police.

But like the governments of the rightwing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), which governed the country from 1989 to 2009, he has failed to curb the skyrocketing crime rates.

“We have an epidemic of violence, and in an epidemic like this one, repression is needed. But prevention and rehabilitation are also necessary, and these two components have been missing,” Padre Pepe said.

He came here from his home country of Spain in 1983, during the civil war between the FMLN and government forces that left 75,000 – mainly civilians – dead, 8,000 missing and 40,000 disabled between 1980 and 1992.

At that time, the priest said, thousands of people from the provinces were fleeing the fighting and flocking to San Salvador, where they built flimsy shacks with scraps of wood, cardboard and plastic on the outskirts of the city and along the banks of the rivers.

“Talking with these people, I started to see the need to give opportunities to those who haven’t had any,” he said.

Realising that even if they finished school, young slum-dwellers had few options, he founded the institute in 1985, to offer them training and the possibility of setting up workshops and cooperatives where they can work when they complete their studies.

Of the current student body of 450, 150 are youngsters classified by the authorities as “high risk” – in other words, they have been involved in gangs or criminal activities or are on the verge of falling into crime.

One example is 15-year-old Antonio, who was spending his time on the narrow streets of his neighbourhood with members of the Mara (or Barrio) 18 gang before his parents brought him to the institute.

“I liked hanging out with them,” he told IPS. “I wasn’t part of the group, but I looked like I was: I dressed and talked like them. I even did little jobs for them as a lookout.”

Now he is in secondary school at the ITOE and wants to become an electrician, one of the trades taught at the institute, along with auto mechanics, carpentry, soldering, and tailoring and dressmaking.

The students include juvenile offenders who were serving sentences but due to good behaviour were referred to the institute by the courts, to study and learn a trade.

That is the case of 18-year-old Ricardo, who was sentenced to four years for rape, three of which he has served in the ITOE. Now he is about to graduate from secondary school and has plans to go on to the university.

“I would like to study to be a lawyer, and eventually become a judge,” he told IPS.

With World Bank support, Moratalla is currently organising a project to create a music band made up of youngsters from the institute and from 40 other schools in poor neighbourhoods.

Just under one-third of the institute’s budget comes from the government – which grants it 300,000 dollars a year – and the rest is covered by donations.

The priest said an agreement with three universities will enable the ITOE to set up a business incubator that will be managed by today’s students, who will continue to run it after they graduate.

Moratalla’s work has the support not only of the Funes administration, but of civil society organisations, which see it as an important contribution to violence prevention efforts.

“It is a good example of how at-risk youth can be given tools to become good, productive citizens,” Ramón Villalta, the head of the Social Initiative for Democracy (ISD), told IPS.

Excerpt:

Chapeu Mangueira, one of the favelas where UPPs have been set up. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabiana Frayssinet and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 17 2011 (IPS)

The “take-over” of Rocinha, one of Rio de Janeiro’s largest favelas, by heavily armed police and military units was seen by some as a media spectacle and by others as part of a successful strategy of regaining state control over an area ruled by armed drug gangs.

Less than three hours after 3,000 police and soldiers occupied the favela or in the south of the city, Rio de Janeiro state Secretary of Public Security José Mariano Beltrame announced the “recovery of the territory” by the state.

“This was achieved without a single shot being fired and – thank God – without a drop of blood being shed,” he said at a crowded press conference, flanked by the high command of the civil and military police and the navy, which all took part in operation “Peace Shock”.

The “show” – as it was described by social analysts like Luiz Eduardo Soares, former secretary of security of Rio de Janeiro state – began before dawn on Sunday Nov. 13.

National and international correspondents, including IPS, flocked to cover what was dubbed Rocinha’s “D-Day.” Some stayed at nearby hotels, while others fended off sleep in their cars, waiting for the dawn “attack.”

The takeover operation, announced with much fanfare several days in advance, blocked entrances and exits from Rocinha at 2:30 a.m., and everyone wanted to be there for what Rio state Governor Sergio Cabral called “a historic day for peace.”

“Rocinha Is Ours” proclaimed the next day’s headlines on the front page of O Globo newspaper, celebrating the reclamation of this neighbourhood of 100,000 people, sprawling precariously up a steep mountainside.

Every detail of the occupation, which met with no resistance from the drug trafficking mafias that ruled the favela for three decades, was caught on film.

Navy tanks entering the narrow twisted alleys with a pink sunrise as a backdrop, naval riflemen in combat fatigues, elite military, federal and civil police squads, drug-sniffing dogs, armoured personnel carriers and helicopters all contributed to the atmosphere of an independence day parade. “I woke up early because of the noise of the helicopters, but everything else was normal,” a woman living in Rocinha, who preferred to remain anonymous, told IPS during the operation.

After years of being under the control of drug gangs and corrupt police, frequently their accomplices, residents are wary.

“I don’t know how long they – the occupiers – are going to stay here,” vendor Edson Pereira told IPS.

Some local people fled to relatives’ homes elsewhere until the invasion was over. Others continued to walk about calmly, indifferent to the heavy military presence.

“The helicopters overhead remind me more of (U.S. filmmaker Francis Ford) Coppola than of Vietnam. The sound, with theatrical fury, underscores the futile choreography of a non-existent war,” Soares remarked on his Facebook page.

But Michel Misse, head of the Centre for Studies on Citizenship, Conflict and Urban Violence at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, told IPS: “This is a de facto intervention that is seeking to reclaim and restore control over this area that was held by drug traffickers.

“Of course it is exploited by the media, but that isn’t the main thing. It’s an action that is part of an ongoing policy of occupation,” he added, referring to the “Police Pacification Units” (UPP) introduced in Rio in 2009.

The UPPs form part of a new security strategy that provides for a permanent community policing presence as well as services and projects for social improvement and infrastructure in favelas, replacing the traditional policy of head-on warfare on the drug gangs.

“Drug trafficking does not vanish when pacification comes, but armed drug trafficking and its control over the population does disappear,” Ignacio Cano, coordinator of Rio de Janeiro State University’s Laboratory for the Analysis of Violence, told IPS. “On a smaller scale, drug dealing continues, as it does in Denmark or any other part of the world.”

But “the shoot-outs, the violence, and territorial control are eliminated,” leaving a less harmful manifestation of the drug trade, according to Cano.

The occupation of Rocinha will make way for the nineteenth UPP, completing a security cordon around the neighbourhoods where stadiums and other infrastructure for the 2014 football World Cup and the 2016 Olympics are being built.

That is why some people are concerned that the “pacification” approach may merely involve short-term opportunistic clean-ups rather than a long-term strategy.

“Pacification or showbiz? It is both,” said Cano.

“The occupation is a show in the way it’s being treated, but at the same time it’s part of a pacification strategy,” said Cano, who added that Rocinha has always been “a powerful symbol” of territorial domination by drug gangs.

The location of the favela, between the southern and western sectors of the city, was also ideal for distributing drugs in the wealthier neighbourhoods.

“However, I’d rather political capital were made out of this kind of occupation than out of the violent invasions of the past, when there were up to 20 killings in a single day,” he said.

Occupation plans are announced in advance in order to protect innocent lives. But in the case of Rocinha, there was an additional feature: a prior stake-out of drug traffickers, which resulted in the arrests of three bosses, one of whom attempted to flee the slum escorted by a group of corrupt police officers.

Cano said the government should select the next areas for pacification “by their levels of violence,” and not by their tourist appeal or location in the midst of wealthier neighbourhoods on the south side of the city, like Rocinha.

But in Misse’s view, the fact that favelas were initially selected for pacification based on their size or their relation to future international sporting events “does not detract from the importance” of the process.

“It was a matter of doing that, or nothing at all,” he said, adding that it “is difficult” to provide UPPs throughout the city, which would involve a vast number of police that “no budget can pay for.”

There are some 750 favelas with 1.5 million people in Rio de Janeiro, about one-third of the total population of the city proper. The goal is to pacify 40 of them by 2014.

Julita Lemgruber, director of the Centre for Security and Citizenship Studies at Cándido Mendes University, does not deny that UPPs may be “an instrument for the political advancement of the governor.”

But she told IPS that they are also “a real attempt to neutralise the absolute power wielded by drug traffickers in some communities.”

Lemgruber is critical of the army’s involvement in the occupations, and questions why there is not a greater emphasis on combating police corruption. But she says she does not “demonise” the UPPs, as some experts do.

“When I interview people in the pacified favelas, I find that they feel relief to be freed from the permanent risk of being hit by a stray bullet in the crossfire between the police and the criminals. I cannot be opposed to these changes,” she said. END/IPS/LA IP HD CV FS/TRASP-VD-SW/FF/11)

Excerpt:

News that the government of South Africa was inspired by Brazil’s health system in setting up its own universal coverage scheme might meet with scepticism in this South American country.

Pediatrics waiting room at the Albert Schweitzer hospital in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Agência Brasil Marcello Casal Jr/EBr

Sociologist Walkiria Dutra de Oliveira was one of the many Brazilians who had a negative opinion of the country’s public healthcare system. But she was in for a surprise when she visited a public health clinic in a middle-class neighbourhood in São Paulo.

Oliveira, who had been diagnosed with diabetes eight years earlier and was facing financial problems, decided to seek free insulin from the public health system.

The “prompt, efficient” attention she was given completely changed the image she had of the Sistema Único de Saúde or Single Health System (SUS), which was shaped during the 1980s when the system was restructured to make healthcare a universal right.

Besides insulin, Oliveira was given free medication for her hypothyroidism, she told IPS.

But Dr. Nivaldo Gomes, who has worked in public hospitals and clinics since the 1970s, told IPS that “although there have been some problems in implementation, the idea is excellent and legitimate.”

The government is fighting a battle in parliament to create new sources of financing for the SUS, but in Gomes’ view, “the problems are due to political and administrative issues, not a shortage of money.”

There is a lack of political will to fully implement the principles underlying the SUS, said Gomes and his colleague, Dr. Dilene do Nascimento, a researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), Brazil’s leading biomedical research institute.

Despite the tragedies caused by medical mistakes and malpractice, the overcrowded hospitals, and the frequent complaints about the system, the SUS has improved health coverage in this country of 192 million people, Nascimento said.

The SUS made it possible to provide everyone with healthcare, while reducing the chaos in the health sector, which was governed in the past by piecemeal policies, she said.

The aim, said Gomes, was to coordinate three levels of public administration – municipal, state and national – that “did not communicate in the past, in the health sector.”

In addition, the SUS was to create a tiered health system with a broad network of primary healthcare clinics at the neighbourhood level and in poor areas on the outskirts of cities, which would refer more serious cases to hospitals and specialist clinics.

The primary health clinics were to relieve the overburdened hospitals.

The new system is based on the concept of democratising health as “a right of all and a duty of the state,” which was incorporated in the 1988 constitution, Nascimento said.

Corruption, aggravated by insufficient inspections, has contributed to the poor execution of the SUS, which is, however, a “universal, tiered, decentralised system with social oversight that can be successfully replicated in any country,” she added.

Primary healthcare system to be adopted in South Africa

The authorities in South Africa want to “borrow” from the SUS primary healthcare system, which “is excellent, far more advanced than us, much more equitable and much more focused on prevention,” South Africa’s minister of health, Pakishe Aaron Motsoaledi, told IPS.

He said the South African government was also interested in replicating Brazil’s network of breast milk banks, which collect and distribute donated breast milk to newborn babies whose mothers cannot supply the milk to meet their needs.

The minister, interviewed during the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health, held Oct. 19-21 in Brazil, also said “we want to eliminate, and not just treat, malaria, and with HIV/AIDS we have got to universalise treatment, just like in Brazil.”

The two governments are drafting a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in health, to be signed in February 2012.

Basic but complex

In Brazil, the lack of health education means people with simple flu symptoms or small injuries continue to go to the large hospitals, which should ideally only receive serious cases referred by the network of primary healthcare givers or by clinics and smaller hospitals.

The SUS was the result of broad debates led in the 1970s and 1980s by specialists in public and collective health, and the new plan awakened “great enthusiasm” in the medical community, Gomes said.

At the time, social security financing of public health was failing, and the system favoured formal sector employment, in a country where a large proportion of the workforce is active in the informal economy.

But the middle and upper classes have opted for private health plans and health insurance providers, Nascimento said.

The private providers are costly, and their political weight undermines the SUS, she said. Moreover, the people who can afford private healthcare still turn to the public system when they need more expensive or complex surgeries or treatment, she added.

That happened, for example, during the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the mid-1980s – although Brazil adopted a policy of making free anti-retroviral drugs universally available because the country’s pharmaceutical industry was interested, Nascimento said.

But the system’s response to the AIDS epidemic was a SUS success story that should be repeated in the case of other diseases, she added.

Small is beautiful

In order for the system to function more effectively, the primary health network, admired by Minister Motsoaledi, must be expanded, with more clinics and family doctors.

The SUS functions well in smaller towns and cities, where municipal governments make sure it operates properly, said Nascimento.

She said she saw this in the years she worked in São José dos Campos in the southern state of São Paulo, when it was still a medium-sized city.

The problems caused by the shortages of hospitals in Rio de Janeiro, which used to have an excellent network of hospitals, are explained by the influx of patients from the rest of the metropolitan region of 12 million people, Gomes said.

The collapse of the city’s hospital network was predicted 30 years ago, due to pressure from the growing population, if smaller hospitals were not built in Rio’s suburbs and satellite cities, he said.

And that is just what happened, Gomes said, adding that proper implementation of the SUS along its guiding principles would put an end to the problem.

* With reporting by Fabíola Ortiz.

By Fabíola Ortiz and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 3 2011 (IPS)

Inspired by the movement for real democracy and people’s power that has spread to hundreds of cities around the world, young Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro have created their own version of “Occupy Wall Street”, dubbed “Occupy Rio”.

"Occupy Rio" protesters camping out in Cinelândia square. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz

Around 125 tents have been pitched in the Cinelândia square, where the city council, the municipal theatre and the national library are situated. The square has become the focal point of demonstrations criticising consumerism, social inequality and the financial system.

Dozens of placards, reading “You are free”, “Come out of your living-room-prison, your life is worth much more than a soap opera episode,” or “Transform arms into art”, express the sense of peaceful protest and freedom that has inundated the plaza since Saturday Oct. 22.

The global wave of demonstrations against the handling of the financial crisis has swept from Madrid, Barcelona and Málaga in Spain to New York, Oakland and Seattle, and on to other capitals and large cities across the globe.

Joining the global tide of protest, “Occupy Rio” is characterised by its diversity and direct democracy through decision-making by assembly.

According to 18-year-old Eduardo de Oliveira Moraes, who is involved in organising the movement’s work groups, plurality is the hallmark of the encampment.

Adopting a horizontal style of organising without hierarchies, people meet in the square for dialogue and discussion, seeking consensus, critiques or protests on widely divergent issues, including politics, economics, culture and the environment.

“We’re also protesting against corruption and all kinds of wavering in the government,” de Oliveira Moraes told IPS. He was one of the first to show up in Cinelândia square at five a.m. on Saturday Oct. 22, ready to start the demonstration.

“Everyone has their own reasons for being here. We have meetings and work group activities every day. We started off thinking we would stay for a week, but now we have no fixed date in mind to leave the square. We are here because this is where we want to be; this square is publicly owned and therefore belongs to us,” he said.

The “Occupy Rio” movement is debating global issues like the financial crisis. But it is also discussing local political issues, while building bridges with local movements in the “favelas” or shanty towns, which are organising against forced evictions caused by the preparations and public works for the 2014 football World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, to be hosted by this city.

Also on the movement’s agenda are the social and environmental impacts of hydroelectric dams in the Amazon jungle, like the Belo Monte project.

Although there are no leaders and the watchword is self-organisation, a great deal of organising is necessary to keep the camp functioning. The group of about 200 protestors share the essential jobs like cleaning, security, and planning timetables for workshops and meetings, they explained to IPS.

Food is provided by members of the camp themselves, or donated by city centre restaurants.

“The movement’s self-organisation is not easy; everything is done by consensus. We are having some difficulties these days because of rain in the city, but there is no shortage of food. People have been very supportive and have given us tarpaulins and electricity generators,” 41-year-old Ronald Stresser told IPS.

The occupation of Cinelândia square will continue indefinitely, said Stresser, who emphasised that new people are arriving every day, joining in solidarity with the movement, “leaving their prejudices behind and taking part in the debates.”

The activist said the global wave of protests is a result of the dissatisfaction and outrage people feel in an increasingly globalised and consumerist world.

“The origin of the problem is our consumer society, and now that there are seven billion people in the world, the situation has become unsustainable,” Stresser said, adding that it was time to raise global awareness on the need for social changes.

“The common goal is to build a better world for everyone. And it’s possible. The movement has already swept across many cities worldwide. We are getting stronger all the time,” he said.

In Rio the movement has met with no opposition from the police, who have apparently gotten used to the presence of the demonstrators in the square.

Twenty-seven-year-old Krishna Pada told IPS that the movement’s weapon of protest is poetry. “We are making poetry with our actions and our words. We are dedicated to self-improvement, and what matters is what each of us can contribute. The world that is controlled by money does not represent us,” he said.

Wander Ferreira, a 28-year-old philosophy student, joined the sustainability group and looks after neglected flowerbeds in the city centre.

“There are many neglected corners of the city centre that we are fixing up, or converting into urban vegetable gardens to grow our own food. It’s very gratifying work; this is a unique experience in my life, and in all our lives,” he said.

Excerpt:

By Fabiana Frayssinet and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 1 2011 (IPS)

When state legislator Marcelo Freixo received death threats for combating militias made up of off-duty police in Rio de Janeiro, his real life took on the form of the character portraying himself in the Brazilian Oscar hopeful “Tropa de Elite 2”.

IPS's Fabiana Frayssinet interviews Brazilian state legislator Marcelo Freixo in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: VincentRimbaux

Nor was it the first anonymous tip about a plot against his life. But the death threat Freixo made public Wednesday Oct. 26 was also aimed at Rio de Janeiro’s secretary of security, José Mariano Beltrame.

Freixo has taken greater precautions since the August murder of Judge Patrícia Acioli, who was known for taking a hard line against militias and corrupt police. A military police battalion commander and several military police officers have been jailed for the assassination.

“If they can kill a judge, they can easily kill a lawmaker, a prosecutor or a secretary (minister). There can be no doubt about their criminal capability,” Freixo told IPS.

“There are many conflicting political and economic interests. And these groups are very violent. They have plotted the deaths of several authorities, including myself,” because of the CPI investigation, he said.

Thanks to the probe, over 1,000 people have been investigated and 500 have been jailed, “including some important people,” Freixo said. Among those tried were a state legislator and several city councillors from Rio de Janeiro and two nearby cities, Duque de Caxias and Nova Iguaçu.

The militias, which Freixo compares to Italian mafias, bear the social and geographical marks of Rio.

Their territories are the crowded “favelas” (shanty towns) clinging to the hillsides, where they charge “extortionate fees” for providing security, and they control illegal businesses like the distribution of bottled gas, cable television services and informal transport.

The militias are heavily armed, and their leaders are state security agents like active duty or retired police, military troops, firemen and prison guards, which makes them “a criminal branch within the state,” Freixo said.

A single one of the 170 militias investigated by the CPI – now totalling 300 – was making 97,000 dollars a day. “That’s a lot of money. It can buy many weapons and many people,” said Freixo, who currently chairs another commission investigating arms dealing, munitions and explosives in Rio de Janeiro state.

In his view, these illegal groups “represent the greatest threat to public security today,” because they commit crimes “within the state, and have plans to occupy the corridors of power,” he said.

These features were woven by filmmaker José Padilha into “Tropa de Elite 2” (Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within), with screenplay by Bráulio Mantovani and starring Wagner Moura as the famed “Roberto Nascimento”, a captain of an elite battalion of Rio de Janeiro military police who is promoted to undersecretary of security.

In contrast to the first “Tropa de Elite” film, which is about drug trafficking and police corruption, there is a different enemy in the sequel.

“As drug traffickers are driven out of the favelas, the police change their behaviour. Instead of partnering drug trafficking and sharing its spoils, the police realise that it is more lucrative to behave like a mafia, dominating the poorest communities and demanding payment for a range of services,” Padilha told IPS.

Now the police “control the favelas, like the mafia controls territories in New York or Italy,” with consequences that Padilha regards as unique.

“The drug trade never had the political influence to get councillors, provincial lawmakers and federal legislators elected. But the militias have done this. They are the true face of organised crime,” said the director of Brazil’s top blockbuster, seen by 11 million people so far.

Now reality and fiction begin to merge. “Fraga”, a history professor who becomes a provincial legislator, like Freixo – who was the inspiration for the character played by Irandhir Santos – is the victim of an attack by a militia in the film, which shows the illegal groups’ expansion of power and territory.

With regard to the exceptionally large number of people killed by the police in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Padilha said “they kill more than 1,000 people a year, while in the whole of the United States the police only kill 250. It’s crazy.”

Padilha, the head of a movement of artists warning “there will be an uproar if anything happens to Freixo,” said the only solution is a reform of the police force with better pay and training.

Freixo recognised “the good work” carried out by the Rio de Janeiro state government, which uses the civilian police to clamp down on the militias. But the only effective way to combat the groups is to “take away their economic power and their territories,” he said.

“The militias are mafias, the militias are a power within the state, not a parallel power. Throwing a few members in prison and combating the groups with the police alone is not enough,” he said.

Freixo is now constantly surrounded by bodyguards and travels in an armoured vehicle, among other measures for his personal protection. He sees it as the price he is paying for merely doing his job.

Padilha’s film conferred visibility on a problem that is currently “being debated in depth throughout society,” Freixo said.

“The result is extraordinary, because a great deal can be learned from the political struggle in Rio de Janeiro: it is the struggle to construct a certain perception and to break down other perceptions and concepts,” he said, although he did not presume that this should necessarily be the goal of art.

“Tropa de Elite 2” is a very “serious” portrayal of the militias, Freixo said. In preparation for the film, the director, screenwriter and cast took part in all the sessions of the CPI.

But the reality is “much worse,” he said.

“The complexity of the militias, their mafia-like structure, the number of people involved, the profits they make, the number of people they kill: there is still material for many more films,” he said.

Excerpt:

By - - and Stephen Leahy
CHANGWON, South Korea, Nov 1 2011 (IPS)

Berlin is a big capital city of a country famed for making excellent automobiles, but it can no longer afford roads and is now moving people by transit, bike and especially through walking.

Bike sharing system in Changwon, South Korea. Credit: City of Changwon

“EcoMobility is not only walking, cycling and public transportation. It is about these three systems clicking together: connectivity is the key,” Gil Peñalosa, former director of parks and recreation in Bogotá, Colombia, told those attending the EcoMobility Changwon 2011 congress.

The congress on Mobility for the Future of Sustainable Cities was organised by the South Korean city of Changwon and ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, an association of local government members from more than 1,220 cities in 70 countries.

“The famous Times Square in New York City is now a permanent pedestrian mall. Who would have believed that could happen just three years ago?” Peñalosa commented to Tierramérica.

“Five years ago who would have thought Paris would have over 22,000 bikes as part of a tremendously successful bike sharing system?” added Peñalosa, who is now the executive director of 8-80 Cities, an NGO based in Toronto that promotes walking, cycling, parks and urban trails to improve the public life of cities.

“We need to build cities around people and not around cars,” he stressed.

EcoMobility is defined as moving people and goods in urban areas using combinations of walking, cycling (including electric bikes) and wheeling (roller blades), public transport, and light electric vehicles.

The concept is being widely embraced by cities looking for affordable and effective forms of sustainable transport.

“Cities should focus more on moving people rather than moving vehicles,” said Stephen Yarwood, mayor of Adelaide, Australia.

The fact is, cars are not very good at moving people. A standard 3.5-meter-wide city street has a maximum capacity of 2,000 people in cars per hour. The same road can carry 14,000 cyclists or 19,000 pedestrians each hour.

Light rail in the same space can move 22,000 people, and a double lane of bus rapid transit will move 43,000 people, said Manfred Breithaupt, director of the GIZ Sustainable Urban Transport Project, a German NGO.

The transportation sector is one of biggest contributors of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, responsible for 25 to 30 percent of the emissions causing climate change.

Cars and scooters are by far the biggest sources of carbon dioxide on a per-kilometre, per-person basis, said Breithaupt. Cycling or walking produces no greenhouse gases at all.

Moving people out of cars is an enormous challenge. One major reason is the endless multi-billion-dollar advertising by automobile companies telling people that buying a car is the ticket to success, freedom, status and other nonsense, said Peñalosa.

“Car companies attack transit with their commercials. Someone told me that in their country, one advertisement suggests people using subways have some kind of ‘subway stink’,” he said.

In North America the cost of owning and operating a private automobile amounts to 8,000 to 12,000 dollars a year, according to automobile clubs. That can be 25 to 50 percent of the average family’s after-tax income, illustrating the success of automobile advertising. “How else could we be spending 20 times more than we need to get around?” wondered Peñalosa.

This is changing in Germany. “More than 80 percent of young people don’t think they need private cars,” said Bernhard Ensink, secretary general of the European Cyclists’ Federation, an NGO based in Brussels.

Car ownership in Germany and other European countries is slowly declining, he said, because there are cheaper and easier ways to get around.

Mobility is also a moral issue, Ensink said. “Who gets the negative impacts of car ownership? It is never the car owner, it is always the public and particularly the poor, especially those living in car-dependent cities.”

Among those impacts are accidents where cars kill and injure thousands of pedestrians and cyclists every day. In fact, car accidents are the primary cause of death for young people aged 15 to 29 years worldwide.

But shifting to an EcoMobility focus is difficult, said Yeom Tae-Young, mayor of the city of Suwon outside of Seoul, Korea. “Citizens must know about EcoMobility and the government’s commitment must be clear,” he told the congress participants.

Suwon, an ancient city with just over a million inhabitants, is competing with Changwon to become South Korea’s greenest and lowest-carbon city.

Not all people will agree, and there will be inconveniences, but the public will still support the changes if they understand it is for the greater good. “We cannot close our eyes to the challenge of climate change,” he concluded.

*The writer is an IPS correspondent. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.

Excerpt:

By Cam McGrath
CAIRO, Oct 22 2011 (IPS)

The upheaval of the Arab Spring has provided fertile ground to plant the seed of a new framework for human rights that moves beyond monitoring violations. Rights advocates want to integrate human rights into the fabric of daily life and are working at the community level to establish the first Human Rights City in the Middle East.

A Human Rights City is one in which all residents and local authorities accept human rights as way of life and engage in positive planning and actions to achieve economic and social justice for the entire community. The model aims to ensure that all laws, policies, resources and relationships in the city preserve the rights and dignity of its members.

“Everybody in the city is on equal footing and – whether the mayor or a garbage man – they are sitting at the table as equals looking collectively at what needs to be solved through a human rights perspective,” explains Robert Kesten, executive director of the People’s Movement for Human Rights Education (PDHRE), the New York-based NGO that developed the concept.

The guiding principles for a Human Rights City are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a framework for individual rights and freedoms ratified by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. It is important that all residents and local authorities know, own and are able to act upon these rights, and that they apply them to all levels of the decision-making and problem-solving process.

The community-based approach requires a paradigm shift. While national institutions are usually responsible for promoting and protecting rights and freedoms in accordance with the state’s international treaties, Human Rights Cities shifts much of this responsibility to the local level. City authorities and residents are recruited as agents of change.

“Instead of focusing on one particular issue or group of people… we’re working at the community level, targeting every man, woman and child,” explains Omar Aysha, a Cairo-based activist involved in the initiative.

Rosario, Argentina, became the first Human Rights City in 1997. Today there are about 15 functioning Human Rights Cities in Europe, Africa and the Americas. PDHRE initiated the projects, but most are now completely self-determined.

Before the Arab Spring there appeared little hope of the concept taking hold in the Middle East and North Africa region, where authoritarian regimes denied their citizens basic political, economic and social rights. But the popular uprisings that toppled dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya have opened a window of opportunity.

“The undercurrents of these revolutions were tied in to the quest for freedom and democracy,” says Kesten. “The desire to be free is a powerful motivator, so when Tunisia fell we knew the other states couldn’t be far behind.”

A fundamental demand of protesters in the uprisings was for the accountability of government to its citizens. Traditionally, government functions as a pyramid with the executive body occupying the top tier. The goal of Human Rights Cities, according to Kesten, “is to invert the pyramid and put people on top so that they have ownership of their rights.”

It was fitting then that PDHRE tapped Alexandria to become the first Human Rights City in the Middle East. It was in this Mediterranean city of four million people that Egypt’s tortuous struggle for human rights and social justice took a fateful turn.

In June 2010, two Alexandria police officers dragged 28-year-old Khaled Said out of a local Internet café and allegedly beat him to death. Police claimed Said died from choking on a bag of marijuana that he swallowed to hide from the plainclothes officers. But when a photo of the young man’s badly disfigured corpse surfaced on the Internet, it sparked public outrage and protests that were instrumental in Mubarak’s overthrow seven months later.

PDHRE hopes to build on the momentum of Khaled Said’s legacy to develop Alexandria as a Human Rights City. The organisation’s leaders say the city is smaller and more manageable than Egypt’s capital, Cairo. Yet it is well-known, historically important and has an international focal point, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

The challenge of transforming a city notorious for political repression and police brutality into a beacon of human rights necessitated a new approach. In August, PDHRE launched the Human Rights Corps of Egypt, a group of individuals from government, business and civil society tasked with “carrying the message to the community.”

Corps members receive training sessions on how to personalise human rights and introduce them to their daily life. They are then encouraged to take this integration process to their home, workplace, and network of social and professional contacts.

“It’s important that people not only know about their rights, but that they integrate them into their life,” explains Aysha, a corps leader. “We all know how to add or subtract because we do it every day. Lessons are forgotten unless you make them an integral part of everything you do.”

The integration process is essential to building a Human Rights City in which residents and local authorities proactively recognise and address human rights rather than merely identify violations. And while the designation carries no legal weight, Kesten points out that a community in which its constituents integrate human rights into the fabric of daily life has the potential to alter the political culture behind most forms of oppression.

As authoritarian regimes continue to crumble across the Middle East and North Africa, PDHRE sees opportunity to facilitate a new understanding of human rights that moves “from charity to dignity.” The organisation is working on a parallel track in Tunisia, where local activists have launched a national human rights corps and are hoping to develop the capital as a Human Rights City.

And with Gaddafi’s brutal regime defeated, Libya may be next in line. [END/IPS/MM/IP/HD/PI/RA/CV/CM/SS/11]

Excerpt:

By Paul Carlucci and Jamila Akweley Okertchiri
Oct 6, Oct 6 2011 (IPS)

Emmanuel Joseph and George Amoah, two disabled Ghanaians, occupy different ends of the spectrum. The former lies on a piece of cardboard in Accra Central, his half-naked body twisted and mostly paralysed, the sun beating down on him while he waits to collect three dollars, the average proceeds of a day’s begging.

Emmanuel Joseph lies on a piece of cardboard in Accra Central. Paralysed from the waist down, he comes here every morning at 7am to beg. Credit: Paul Carlucci/IPS

The latter sits in a wheelchair and wears a tidy three-piece suit, his hair neatly cut and his eyes alert as he works through another day at a major international bank in the same neighbourhood.

They are just two of the country’s estimated two million disabled, who, according to the World Health Organization, account for seven to 10 percent of the population. Five years after its passage, the Persons with Disability Act has brought few changes to their lives.

On paper its provisions promise plentiful employment opportunities, free education, accessible buildings and transportation, and societal acceptance. The reality is much different.

“Sometimes I get insulted,” says Joseph, who says his legs became paralysed after he received a medicinal injection because he fell sick. “Sometimes people also beat me.”

He lives with his brother in a community called Post Office. Every morning, he wheels himself to Central and lies on the sidewalk. People with similar disabilities are all over the area, some pushing themselves around on pieces of plywood, while others wade into traffic snarls to beg for change.

“There is a very subtle discrimination,” says Amoah. “So far as you are physically challenged, you are categorised in a certain way. I do not know if you should only be begging or weaving or whatever. To a large degree, that’s the mind set of corporate Ghana.”

In some ways, Amoah lucked out. He is university educated, and he was able to find a position at the bank after a non-governmental organisation Sight Savers hosted its first annual job fair in 2010.

He is vague about the origins of his disability, but he says it struck him when he was young, and resulted in his missing five years of school. That he managed to get ahead in a country that often regards disability with superstition or derision is a victory. His disabled friends have not been so lucky.

“Obviously, it is a very difficult challenge,” Amoah says. “They have to depend on family. Some will have to find menial jobs, and a few of them (beg). Most of them do jobs that they are way above, but they have to survive.”

None of the Act’s provisions have been fully realised. A draft legislative instrument, which is supposed to flesh out clauses related to employment, education, penalties, and the built environment, has been stalled somewhere between the Ministry of Social Welfare and the Attorney General’s Office.

This comes as the Ghana Federation of the Disabled (GFD) is trying to leverage its relationship with government to make changes.

“If we do not do that, and the draft legislative instrument is passed as it is, there will be a lot of gaps,” says Isaac Tuggon, an advocate with GFD. “It is something that should have been ready a long time ago.”

According to the Act, Ghana’s built environment should be accessible by 2016. While there are accessible buildings in Accra, the city is still laden with barriers, from open gutters to old buildings with only steep steps and no elevators. Tuggon complains that hardly any work has been done to bring buildings up to code, and that even new structures are lacking ramps and other features.

“The government’s hands are tied because the government itself is not doing what is right,” he says.

In Accra Central, where many of the federal ministries are headquartered, only the Ministry of Social Welfare has wheelchair ramps.

“If I can go anywhere, I am not disabled,” says Amoah alluding to the fact that it is very difficult to get around the city. “Sometimes, it is the environment that is disabling.”

The Act also called for the establishment of a National Council on Persons with Disability. The council has been formed, but its executive secretary, Max Vardon, says it is under resourced and under funded.

One of the council’s tasks has been to pass guidelines for disbursing monies set in municipal, metropolitan, or district Common Funds. The funds were established in the 1990s as Ghana sought to decentralise its federal government.

In 2005, in response to advocacy pressure, two percent of those funds were pledged to persons with disabilities. That money was slow in coming, if it came at all. The guidelines were supposed to fix the problem.

“The bottom line is they are not really very interested,” says Vardon. “Ghanaians as a whole are not very interested in disability. We just do not want to know. The people who work in the district assemblies are also Ghanaians. They too have the same attitude. They do not want to know.”

In 2010, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development began issuing directives to municipal, metropolitan, and district governments insisting they fall in line with the guidelines, which, among other things, called for a separate account to hold the monies and a committee to determine how they should be disbursed.

Slowly but increasingly, committees are being formed and accounts are being opened. The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) says it has over 52,000 dollars in an account. According to the AMA’s budget officer, a committee will be fully assembled within a couple weeks.

The AMA also disputes allegations that it had not disbursed money before the imposition of the guidelines. The local government’s budget officer has several documents showing grants for sewing machines and other working tools.

Until the Act’s legislative instrument is passed, there’s no way to penalise people or institutions that contravene its provisions. At the same time, most disability advocates seem to feel change is gradually coming. Some, like Amoah, think it is a slow evolution of corporate Ghana’s mind set. Others, like Vardon, think it is a matter of society reflecting itself in government.

“Over the years,” Vardon says, “this sector has not been as heavily resourced as others, and we reflect the choices we have made as society. If more people made more noise about their cousin, their aunt, their uncle, whatever, who have disability, more people made noise about it, then perhaps government would say, okay, let us make more resources available for that.”

Excerpt:

“Ex dockyard worker, now a beggar” reads the sign displayed by a man in a spotless shirt who is panhandling near a square in this southern Spanish city where dozens of demonstrators are chanting: “The bank always wins and I’m against this!” and “What’s going on? We have no homes!”

"Indignados" protest home repossessions in Málaga. Credit: Inés Acosta/IPS

With less than two months to go to Spain’s general elections, the May 15 (15-M) Movement is highlighting the serious problems caused by the financial crisis in the rich world, on the premise that democracy is not just about voting every four years, but an open system in which citizens can and should participate directly in public affairs.

The economic crisis has left four million Spaniards unemployed, more than 20 percent of the economically active population, most of them young people, while thousands of families cannot keep up their mortgage payments and have lost their homes.

“The time has come for democracy to go beyond political representation, and open up to consultations and referendums for matters of social importance,” Klaudia Álvarez, a 35-year-old spokeswoman for “Real Democracy Now” (DRY), the platform that convened the original protest at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid on May 15, told IPS.

That day gave its name to the 15-M movement of demonstrators who call themselves the “indignados” or “indignant” or “angry” ones, which has spread to other major cities in Spain.

The “indignados” organise themselves through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and demonstrate spontaneously against an economic model they perceive as socially unjust, and a political system in which governing parties are subordinated to economic power.

“Citizens should be able to propose laws, use electronic means of voting as proposed by Democracy 4.0, or help write a constitution, like Iceland’s Wikiconstitution,” Álvarez said.

Democracy 4.0 is an initiative of Spanish lawyer Juan Ignacio Moreno that proposes direct voting by citizens via the internet on any matters debated in either house of parliament.

In Málaga, one of the biggest cities in the southern region of Andalusia, 15-M activists were able to get the regional parliament to receive a people’s legislative initiative (ILP) presented May 31, to increase citizen participation in political decision-making, lawyer José Cosín told IPS.

Álvarez criticised Spain’s electoral laws for favouring a two-party system, and complained about the lack of transparency of political parties, “because we not only want the financial disclosure statements of politicians, but we also want to know how the parties are financed.”

Fabio Gándara, another DRY spokesman and a 26-year-old unemployed lawyer, told IPS the election laws “distort the political decisions of the Spanish people, because they discriminate against small parties and manipulate proportional representation so that certain parties are allocated more seats.”

The campaign for the Nov. 20 elections officially began Sept. 26, and according to the polls the centre-right People’s Party (PP) is likely to win with a considerable lead over the governing Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE).

The PP won the May 22 local and regional elections – which were already marked by 15-M protests – by a broad margin. According to a study by the state Centre for Sociological Research (CIS), over 20 percent of voters said the demonstrations had influenced their voting decisions.

Jaime Ferri, a professor of political science at the Complutense University of Madrid, told IPS that 15-M “played a role in keeping voter turnout down.” He described the “indignados” as “progressives close to leftwing parties, who want to rid themselves of having to vote for the main parties.”

Gándara said the 15-M movement does not want to influence the elections by asking people to vote one way or another. He said “our relationship with the parties is limited to touching the nerve of existing problems, and demanding solutions.”

Earlier polls found nearly 80 percent of respondents agreed with the demands of the “indignados”. This shows the “enormous” distrust ordinary citizens have of the leaders of the big parties, said Álvarez, who teaches audiovisual arts in the northeastern city of Barcelona.

The 15-M movement has called for a “global non-violent protest” on Oct. 15, when “people from all over the world will take to the streets and squares to claim their rights and demand a true democracy,” according to its web site at www.15october.net.

“People are organising via the on-line social networks, and on the street, to move towards a world where we will not be chattels in the hands of politicians and bankers,” said Álvarez, who predicts a hot autumn of protests to show that citizens “have more to say about democracy, beyond the electoral show.”

15-M regards “the electoral process as an empty ritual, just a simulacrum of real political participation,” said Fernando Vallespín, a professor of political science at the Autonomous University of Madrid, in an interview published in September in the Spanish magazine Claves.

In Gándara’s view, Oct. 15 will be “the key moment” ahead of the general elections for the “indignados” to express, in a protest organised on an international scale, “their discontent with the policies being imposed virtually all over the planet.”

The pressure from the movement has influenced debate in political parties, which have incorporated some of its demands into their programmes.

“Many of the demands and proposals voiced by the ‘indignados’ over the past few months are already in the political arena and have been taken up by several parties, and by important sectors within the parties,” Gándara said.

However, Álvarez considers this an “electoral ruse,” because “including something in the programmes does not guarantee that it is really put into practice, and we are used to politicians failing to keep their promises.”

The government of socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero made a political U-turn in May 2010 under pressure from the European Union, to curb growing debt and ward off a financial bailout by the country’s eurozone partners. The drastic adjustment was a fiscal success, but at the cost of deep cuts in social spending and a sharp rise in unemployment.

“Spain’s politicians do not govern for the people, but in response to pressure from bodies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the European Central Bank (ECB), to keep countries like the United States or Germany happy, or to calm the panic attacks of foreign investors,” Gándara complained.

With slogans like “Spend the military budget on schools and hospitals,” hundreds of “indignados” hit the streets in dozens of cities Sept. 18 to protest the cuts in public service budgets.

Álvarez said DRY is preparing what is known as a Citizen Bailout that “breaks away from the absurd belief that the only way out of the crisis is to follow the dictates of austerity, spending cuts and privatisation,” and proposes alternatives such as reforming the tax system, regulating speculation and fighting fraud and tax havens.

“It’s a package of constructive proposals that we hope will encourage citizens to continue to demand essential changes in our democracy,” said Gándara.

“After the elections, whoever is in government, we will continue to fight for every one of our demands,” Álvarez said.

“I want to thank the 15-M. I will not forget them,” Algerian immigrant Sid Hamed Bouziane, whose deportation order was revoked after a group of activists from this burgeoning Spanish protest movement held an 11-day demonstration on his behalf, told IPS.

"Indignados" in Málaga protest cuts in health and education. Credit: Inés Benítez/IPS

Bouziane, 29, who faces death threats in his country, spent 28 days in the Migrant Detention Centre (CIE) in the southern Spanish city of Málaga after he was detained by the authorities.

The opposition activist told IPS that he fled Algeria in 2008 when the military police tried to force him to infiltrate an armed anti-government Islamist group.

After he was arrested several times, he agreed to the order to infiltrate the group, in order to be released. But then he fled to Spain in a “patera”, the duck-hunting boats commonly used by those trafficking undocumented immigrants to Spanish shores.

Upon arrival he did not dare ask for asylum “out of fear, and because he lacked proof,” his lawyer José Cosín, a member of the May 15 Movement (15-M), told IPS.

Once he was detained and given legal support, he applied for asylum. But it was denied, and a date was set for his deportation from Spain.

The 15-M held protests to demand that the deportation be halted, and that the CIEs be closed “because they violate the most fundamental rights of human beings,” according to the members of the movement, who call themselves the “indignados” or “indignant” or “angry” ones.

“Managing to stop Bouziane’s sentencing to death was a success for our movement. No human being is illegal,” said Cosín. He also noted that the government cancelled the deportation order in August after the Algerian activist married his Spanish girlfriend, Candela Mayorgas, thus gaining the right to stay in Spain.

Four months after the original May 15 sit-in protest stretched into a full-fledged tent camp at Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square, giving rise to a growing wave of massive rallies and protests around Spain, the “Spanish revolution” – as it has been dubbed by the press – has been making bigger and bigger waves.

The “indignados” began to organise via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to hold spontaneous demonstrations against the government’s economic and political performance in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades.

The movement has so far blocked more than 65 evictions, although an average of 175 evictions a day were carried out in Spain in the first quarter of 2011 as a result of the real estate bust, Esther Vivas, a member of the Centre of Studies on Social Movements at the Pompeu Fabra University in the northeast city of Barcelona, told IPS.

Vivas described the flash demos mobilised through the social networking sites to prevent the eviction of elderly people, widows or people with limited mobility as “small concrete victories that demonstrate that fighting is useful and that everything is possible if people organise.”

Due to the economic crisis, thousands of people have failed to keep up on their mortgage payments and have been forced out of their homes under a law “that shamefully protects banks and leaves citizens completely defenceless,” Cosín said.

Under the current law, for example, it is not enough to merely hand over the housing unit to the bank to cancel the debt; lenders can foreclose not only on the house but seize all the assets, including part of the wages, of the debtor in order to cover the outstanding mortgage debt.

The lawyer said the law “should be modified to reflect basic tenets of humanity, alternatives to eviction, because there are truly dramatic situations, and putting values like legal security above these problems is contemptible.”

On Sep. 15, the “indignados” in Málaga were able to prevent the eviction of a young pregnant woman and her daughter in a protest in which two activists were arrested by the police who, according to the 15-M, “brutally charged the demonstrators.”

The Platform of those Affected by Mortgages (PAH) was established on Feb. 22 in Barcelona to complain that the poor regulation of the banking system means that not only do families lose their homes, but they continue to owe money on their mortgages, because of the way banks are appraising the value of homes.

15-M has not only blocked evictions but has also successfully lobbied Congress to adopt protective measures for mortgage holders, such as raising the proportion of wages that cannot be garnished to pay off debts.

The movement has also pressed for legal reforms to approve “dacion en pago” – which basically means handing back the keys and the property in exchange for the bank discharging all mortgage debt. This solution, however, was rejected by all of the major parties.

But the protesters have managed to get some banks, like Bankinter, to adopt “dación en pago” on all mortgage loans, while Banco Santander has offered a three-year mortgage payment suspension for clients who have lost their jobs, or families that have seen a 25 percent drop in monthly income.

“Of course the movement has achieved some things,” Professor Jaime Ferri at the Complutense University political science department in Madrid told IPS.

The most significant “is that there is a new collective awareness of the importance of the fact that a large part of the population is demonstrating its discontent and taking action.”

In Málaga, one of the largest cities in the southern province of Andalusía, 15-M successfully pressured the regional parliament to begin to study a “popular legislative initiative” (ILP) presented on May 31 that would boost citizen participation in political decision-making, Cosín said.

“This is an achievement for everyone, because the initiative attempts to get citizens more involved in the process of creating laws – a right that they currently cannot exercise,” said the lawyer, pointing out that no ILP has been approved in Andalusía in nearly 40 years of democracy.

Another victory by 15-M was to prompt a debate on the need to reform the country’s election laws, which favour the large political parties, in order to increase social participation in decision-making.

Members of the conservative opposition People’s Party, such as the governor of the province of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, are now defending the use of open lists of candidates, while the governing Socialist Party has proposed reforms inspired by the German system, with a more proportional distribution of seats.

“The current election laws thwart participation by small parties,” said Vivas at the Pompeu Fabra University, who also criticised a recent constitutional reform that allows public spending to be limited.

According to the 15-M, this will hurt spending on education and health.

Vivas pointed to the strong presence of the “indignados” in protests over the last few months against cuts in public spending on health – closures of hospitals and health clinics and a reduction in the number of ambulances – in the northeastern province of Catalonia.

The 15-M set up camps outside the health centres, where they demonstrated alongside health professionals, neighbourhood associations and health consumers.

On Sunday Sep. 18, the “indignados” poured onto the streets of Spain’s largest cities to protest the reduction of budgets for public services, demanding the right to health care and quality education.

Chanting slogans like “divert military spending to schools and hospitals” and “less corruption, more education”, hundreds of people responded to the 15-M’s calls to march through the streets of Málaga behind a huge banner reading “free quality public health care and education for all”.

In Catalonia, hundreds of health clinics and wings of hospitals have been closed; in Castilla-La Mancha in central Spain hundreds of pharmacies went on strike to protest the non-payment of bills by the government health authority; and in Madrid, teachers protested cuts in education, a 15-M statement says.

As a result of the crisis, there are more than four million people unemployed in Spain – over 20 percent of the labour force – and the highest jobless rates are among the young.

The government of socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who called early general elections for Nov. 20, took a radical shift in its politics in May 2010, under pressure from the European Union, to confront the growing levels of debt and avoid a financial bailout by the country’s Eurozone partners.

The drastic adjustment plan was fiscally successful, but at the cost of slashing social spending and driving up unemployment, the most pressing social problem today.

According to Professor Ferri, “the 15-M will help mark the agenda for the future.” He is a front-row observer of the phenomenon, as many of his students are taking part in the movement that is now extending to neighbourhoods and smaller towns, after ending the major sit-ins and camps in the central squares of the main cities.

In one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the Colombian capital, 26-year-old Sandra Sánchez has created an oasis that offers meals, recreational opportunities, company and much more to hundreds of children and elderly people, in an example of solidarity and leadership that has transcended borders.

Sandra Sánchez, right, with a group of seniors at lunch time in the Oasis. Credit: Helda Martinez/IPS

In 2004, Sánchez established the Oasis Social Foundation in El Paraíso, a neighbourhood in Ciudad Bolívar – a poor district strung along the hills on the southeast edge of the Colombian capital that has been settled by hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the country’s nearly half-century civil war.

Sánchez’s family arrived 19 years ago in El Paraíso – which is located at the highest point of Ciudad Bolívar – when it was just barren hilltops, before it was gradually occupied by people who had fled the violence. “My dad built a small house out of guadua (a kind of bamboo that grows in Latin America),” the head of Oasis told IPS.

Reaching El Paraíso involves a 20-minute uphill bus ride through the sprawling working-class district of Ciudad Bolívar that is home to over one million of the 10 million people in the greater Bogotá area.

In Ciudad Bolívar, high levels of poverty and violent crime coexist with a spirit of solidarity that draws new displaced families to the area.

The “soup kitchens for life” programme “includes education on nutrition, and regular weight monitoring,” Sánchez explained the day this IPS reporter spent in Oasis.

The “house of values”, another Oasis programme, promotes collective knowledge, solidarity and non-violence, and offers adult literacy classes and workshops in art and other areas. “We encourage reflection on ethics, and we support dreams, like the one I had,” she said.

Another project that is just getting underway is the organic farm, which will supply the Oasis soup kitchens. The farm is located in a rural area in the municipality of Guayabal de Síquima, 68 km west of Bogotá, where the chill felt in hilly El Paraíso gives way to a warmer climate.

“We are seeking self-sustainability and food security, but also rest and recreation for the seniors and children we serve, many of whom have not even been outside of Ciudad Bolívar,” Sánchez said at the farm, surrounded by some of the people who are assisted by the programme.

There is also a special programme for teenage mothers, in this area where teen pregnancy rates are high and girls face, often on their own, a situation in which they need advice, guidance and support.

Solidarity from a young age

Sánchez’s neighbours found out about her vocation to help others and her leadership and organising skills when she was just a child. In 1994, at the age of nine, she was the first girl to be elected “personera” or student representative of her school.

As personera, she overcame any obstacle to obtain funds or repairs for her school. And two years later she was elected head of all of the “personeros” in Ciudad Bolívar, while she began to organise networks of student leaders and to represent her community in national and international meetings and events.

In 2002, at the age of 17, she won the prize for humanitarian action awarded by Madame Figaro, the women’s magazine produced by the French daily Le Figaro.

The catalyst for the creation of Oasis was the death of an elderly neighbour, María Pacanchipe, who died of hunger at the age of 68. “Her ulcer started to bleed because she didn’t have enough to eat,” Sánchez said. “She was my friend, and her death pushed me to talk less and act more.”

The case illustrated the problems faced in Colombia by elderly women, many of whom are steeped in poverty and neglect because they have no pension, no family, or have been abandoned by their relatives. “Women live longer, but in worse conditions,” Sánchez said.

In memory of Pacanchipe, she set up a day care for elderly women in her home, where they could chat, keep each other company, learn about their rights, tell their stories – even dance and sing. Elderly men soon joined them, and later children and their mothers started to come.

An Oasis blooms

A university course on leadership, the Le Figaro prize money and support from local, Spanish and French organisations enabled her to build the Oasis Social Foundation building.

“I am moved by generosity in the midst of poverty and need,” said Sánchez, recalling how people came together to lay the foundations of the building, which is now three stories high.

Margarita, 69 – who did not give her last name – eats every day at Oasis, warding off the loneliness of her humble home by taking part in the activities there. She says she feels fortunate to be able to stay in her home thanks to the support she receives from the Foundation.

Her eyes fill with pain when she says her only son left for the United States seven years ago and she heard no more from him after receiving a few letters – a story similar to that of many other elderly women, in a country where 62 percent of women over 65 have survived their husbands.

An autobiographical book on Sánchez’s fight against poverty, “Los olvidados de Bogotá” (roughly, The Forgotten Ones of Bogotá), published in 2003 inspired Marianne Roussy from Switzerland to make the documentary “El paraíso de Sandra” (Sandra’s Paradise) which was screened in Bogotá and Paris in 2008.

“I was impacted by her work, and by this community organising project carried out by people who did not just sit around complaining but joined efforts and are moving forward,” Marie Claude Dubail, a Colombian-French woman who raised funds from the Paris city government and French NGOs, told IPS.

“The work here has helped me a great deal because we have four children, and my husband, a watchman, doesn’t always have work,” Lidibia Salazar told IPS. Her displaced family came to El Paraíso five years ago, and she works as a cook at the Oasis, which employs eight women from the neighbourhood.

“We get here at 4:00 in the morning. The kids start coming for breakfast at 5:30, and lunch starts being served at 11:00,” she said. “We work until 4:00 in the afternoon, to leave everything clean and organised. We are above all friends; we all take care of each other.”

Young ambitions

Sánchez is about to graduate in law from the prestigious University of Rosario, where she studies on a scholarship. But her degree will not pull her away from El Paraíso, she promises.

Her case is not an isolated one in her neighbourhood, she says. “Life has changed for young people in this area. They dream more now about continuing their studies and going to the university. They don’t want to be street vendors like many of their parents.”

Oasis has a sponsors programme, who provide not only funding but other kinds of support.

“Company and affection are also important. Students at the University of Rosario, for example, are now aware of a reality that they knew nothing about before. And each one offers what they can. They gave grandmother Margarita a radio, and you can’t imagine how much that changed her life,” Sánchez said.

Although pets are banned in some areas, many owners take them along to the beach. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Sep 5 2011 (IPS)

People are packed like sardines on the sand and in the water. Like every summer in Cuba, tens of thousands of Havana residents seek to escape the heat and worries of city life every day along a 12-km stretch of popular beaches to the east of the capital, known as Playas del Este.

“When I was a teenager, I used to come with my friends every day in July and August as soon as school was out and until we had to go back. Now transportation is more difficult and the beach is not as nice, but even so, I can’t stop coming,” Liana Méndez, a 36-year-old professional, told IPS.

Méndez, like many Cubans, schedules her summer vacation to coincide with the school holidays. “We rent a private house for the whole family for a week, or we come whenever we can on the bus, by taxi or on the train to Guanabo,” she added.

Up to 200,000 people a day crowd the beaches to the east of Havana, a veritable invasion that overburdens the public transport system and affects the lives of the area’s 25,000 year-round residents.

For over 30 years, the Havana provincial transport authorities have added additional buses to the beach routes. But for more than a decade, those efforts have been concentrated on Guanabo, a community with few state offerings for foreign tourists and a high concentration of Cuban beach-goers.

Every August, departures are scheduled from the Havana central railway station for a five-carriage Guanabo-bound train with a 300-seat capacity. “Sometimes it’s scary to see how many people get off that train in the morning,” said María Díaz, who lives in Guanabo’s La Conchita neighbourhood.

Like her neighbours, Díaz places a sign on her door to keep visitors away: “No water, no bathroom, beware of dog.” There are families, however, who for years have made a living from providing summertime services, from doing brisk business renting rooms or houses to selling drinking water.

“One family here built their home by selling tamales on the beach. It took them about 15 years, but they did it,” Díaz commented.

On the Guanabo train, groups of young people chat boisterously as a mother nurses her baby, who will bathe in the sea before his first birthday. There is no lack of the traditional peanut and candy sellers, or police, who try to keep order during a time when social problems are mounting due to alcohol consumption.

At the end of the day, signs of the “human flood” are everywhere: the remains of food, beer cans, plastic bottles and bags, condoms, rum bottles and other rubbish are strewn across the sand, despite the rustic garbage cans distributed along the beach.

At night, the waves drag some of the waste from the beaches into the sea.

When the sun is high in the sky at noon, university professor Tania González, 46, and her husband, Ricardo Herrera, 48, look for shade. They decided to take the bus to leave early in the morning from the Havana district of 10 de Octubre with their two children, Liz and Adrián, on a journey that can take hours because of the transport crisis.

“Some parts of the beach are in quite bad shape,” said González, who remembers the “green-blue” colour of the water when her parents would bring her as a child. Palm trees and other coastal vegetation are scant after years of construction of homes and service facilities along the shore. And the coastline retreats almost one metre a year due to erosion.

For almost two decades, the dunes were covered with stands of casuarinas, or Australian pines, which are not native to the area. They were cut down between 1981 and 1985.

Both of those mistakes have contributed to coastal erosion and the shrinking or outright disappearance of the dunes, according to a study by the government-run Cuban Oceanology Institute.

Published as part of a 2010 oceanology series, the article by a group of authors led by geologist Magalys Sosa found that “in the last 27 years, the Playas del Este have evolved toward the restoration of the original morphology of dunes.” But more must be done to restore the area’s ecosystem, she said.

“We came early and we’re leaving early. It is not recommendable to be under the sun at noon and during the afternoon. There are hardly any palm trees, and the few we saw were far way,” Adanet Rodríguez, a 15-year-old student, told IPS. Unlike previous generations of young people, she is beginning to be aware of the dangers of excessive tanning.

Studies by the Cuban Centre for Engineering and Environmental Management of Bays and Coasts warn that the main source of pollution is faeces, which is poured into the ocean through sewage discharge and rivers like the Guanabo and Itabo. Likewise, toxic substances from oil spills have been found in coastal waters.

The local population loves the beach. Several environmental projects have emerged in these areas, such as the now-defunct 2006 Sibarimar Committee of the Cuban Society for the Protection of the Environment/Pronaturaleza.

From 1994, this group had promoted participatory and community management of the area, along with environmental education.

Since the project came to an end, however, “only brief environmental actions have been carried out” in the area, Ángel Valdés, president of Pronaturaleza, told IPS.

In 2012, a new environmental initiative should benefit the town of Guanabo and 30 other coastal communities nationwide, the activist announced.

Excerpt:

By Fabiana Frayssinet
SÃO GONÇALO, Brazil, Aug 26 2011 (IPS)

The assassination of Brazilian Judge Patrícia Acioli, who was investigating militias made up of off-duty police and death squads, points to a new stage of organised crime, which is expanding into the vacuum left by the impunity surrounding 90 percent of murders in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

Memorial to murdered Judge Patrícia Acioli draws little attention from passersby on the beach in Niteroi. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

Very few people stop to look at, or pay homage before, the tall cross, which was erected by the Rio de Paz peace movement to commemorate the Aug. 12 murder of the judge, who was pumped full of bullets – at least 21 were fired by gunmen from several vehicles – in front of her house in that city.

Many people can be seen jogging along the beach every morning, others take photos of the Atlantic Ocean and the surrounding hills. Only one slow-moving elderly man rests briefly in front of the memorial, reading the scraps of paper pasted there by Acioli’s family members, friends and colleagues, calling for the killers to be punished.

“Anywhere else in the world, this cross would be covered with flowers,” the president of Rio de Paz, Antônio Carlos Costa, tells IPS. He is visiting the memorial, where his organisation plans to hold a demonstration to protest the appalling murder and raise awareness of how serious the situation is.

“This time, organised crime was bold enough to target a prominent figure representing the democratic rule of law. This was an attempt to silence our judiciary. We see that as extremely grave, from every point of view,” he said.

Violence and impunity are no strangers to this city, which is located just across Guanabara Bay from Rio de Janeiro, the city that will host the Olympic Games in 2016.

The state government’s public security institute counted 31,000 “violent deaths” between 2007 and July 2011 – a category that encompasses everything from manslaughter and grievous bodily harm resulting in death to “acts of resistance”, as the police describe incidents in which they kill alleged criminal suspects.

According to rights watchdog Amnesty International, some 1,000 people a year are killed by the police in Rio de Janeiro alone.

And a full 90 percent of homicides go unpunished in Rio de Janeiro, Costa pointed out.

But the assassination of a judge is cause for special concern because it represents the start of “a new crime phenomenon” in Brazil, a “Mexicanisation”, Costa said, alluding to the dramatic escalation of violence in the deadly drug war in that country.

“Yesterday it was a judge, a lawmaker, next it could be the columnist of a large newspaper or a social activist,” he said. “This crime was extremely serious because of what it represents for the institutions of a democratic state, but regrettably society hasn’t understood that.”

But the authorities do appear to be reacting to a case they also see as emblematic.

After introducing new security measures in the court where Acioli worked, in the neighbouring city of São Gonçalo, the state attorney general, Claudio Lopes, said the judicial and executive branches were determined “to find the perpetrators as quickly as possible.”

Lopes told IPS “those killers shouldn’t think the judge’s murder will go unsolved and unpunished – that is exactly what will not happen.”

“This is a typical revenge killing, a case of intimidation of a very brave judge,” state Governor Sérgio Cabral said in a press conference.

Acioli, 47, had a reputation for taking a hard line against criminals, and had many enemies – among drug traffickers, corrupt police, and members of gambling and illegal public transport mafias, and of militias made up of off-duty police, who passed through her court room.

Although it is not clear who killed her, there is a consensus on why she was killed. “She was an independent and courageous woman,” Costa said. “She cracked down on some of the worst scoundrels in Rio de Janeiro. She fought organised crime and death squads. There is not a shadow of a doubt that her death was related to her commitment to justice.”

The president of the São Gonçalo branch of the Brazilian bar association, José Luís Muniz, told IPS that the murder “was an attack on the judicial system, an attempt to intimidate it and make it stop investigating and cracking down on the different mafias operating out there.”

In the last few days, the investigations have focused on police stations in the region. The civil police are investigating the names on a list of 91 military police implicated in murder cases being handled by Acioli’s court, 50 of which involved “acts of resistance”.

The ammunition used in Acioli’s murder, in which two cars and two motorcycles were involved, were reportedly from guns used by the military police, according to information leaked to the press despite the secrecy surrounding the case.

Costa said the only way to curb the “Mexicanisation” of the city is to start by purging and reforming the police force, where “organised crime has its tentacles,” and attack other “tentacles” in the executive and legislative powers.

“We are facing a task that will require major mobilisation on the part of society,” he said.

According to the National Council of Justice, at least 87 judges have received death threats in this country of 192 million people. Acioli had also received death threats, and had requested a police bodyguard, which was withdrawn for reasons that have not yet been clarified.

Gabriela Knaul, a Brazilian judge who is United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, demanded answers.

Acioli’s murder “is evidence of an extremely serious and persistent problem in terms of protecting judges in Brazil,” said Knaul, pointing out that many of the judges facing threats are on death squad lists.

The lists also include the names of human rights activists, legislators and anyone else who has dared to try to dismantle the militias.

“By attacking a judge, they are sending a message to the rest of the judges, prosecutors and witnesses – who are a fundamental part of any legal proceedings – to ‘be careful, because if we dare to kill a judge, we could do the same to you’,” Muniz said.

“Who has silenced the voice of justice?” ask two banners strung up near the cross, which only has the company of a single bouquet of white roses on the busy beach.

Excerpt:

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Aug 15 2011 (IPS)

A Venezuelan municipality where the main industry is oil refining, and that has an import-export “free zone”, is set to become a plastic bag-free area.

The oil-refining municipality of Carirubana is banning plastic bags. Credit: Yanethe Gamboa/IPS

The municipal bye-law that has been approved and is about to be signed by Mayor Alcides Goitía will come into effect early in 2012. It bans the sale and use of plastic bags with a capacity of under 30 kg; larger bags will still be allowed, for collecting garbage. Penalties will be exacted for infringements, especially against those who throw plastic bags away in public places, or burn them.

“This decision arises from concern for the health and education of our people, the beauty of our landscape and the fostering of tourism, for our peninsula is blessed with beautiful beaches and scenery, fine food, and a free zone,” Kile Baldayo, the president of the Carirubana local council, told IPS.

“The planet is choking on plastic bags. Everywhere in Venezuela is cluttered with them, from virtually every metre of coastline all the way to the tops of the ‘tepuyes’ (ancient flat-topped mountains in the southeastern province of Guayana), as well as our streets, fences and garbage dumps,” Baldayo said. “It’s time we did something to stop the degradation of the environment.”

Pollution from plastic waste is not merely a matter of an aesthetic blight on the landscape, Alejandro Álvarez of the ARA network of environmental organisations told IPS. “When garbage is incinerated in the open air, large quantities of dioxins and furans are released, which is worrying even though we don’t know the exact quantities emitted,” he said.

Dioxins and furans are carcinogens that are produced when plastics are burned, and accumulate in oily solvents, soils, sediments, the food chain and human body tissues.

Reasoned arguments justifying the ordinance were presented to the city council of Carirubana by Goitía and Baldayo, who quoted statistics from the environmental watchdog Greenpeace indicating over six million tonnes of garbage, largely plastic waste, are dumped into the oceans every year.

The text of the bye-law includes estimates by the U.S. Blue Ocean Society that 46,000 pieces of plastic waste per square mile (18,000 per square kilometre), on average, are afloat on seas and oceans, and that one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals are killed every year through ingestion or entanglement.

According to the local environmental organisation Vitalis, 500,000 tonnes of plastics are used annually in Venezuela, but only 20 percent is recycled. One-third of the total is flexible packaging, so on average each of the country’s 29 million people uses about 150 plastic bags a year.

The Carirubana municipality’s new regulation bans the purchase, sale and distribution of plastic bags unless they are made of biodegradable or oxo-biodegradable materials.

Ordinary polyethylene, a synthetic polymer made from ingredients in mineral oil, takes hundreds of years to decompose, but oxo-biodegradable plastics contain additives that speed up the decay process to only a few months in the presence of sunlight and oxygen.

Biodegradable (bioplastic) bags are even better as they can be made from starch (present in potatoes and maize, for example), instead of petrochemicals.

Carirubana will continue to permit conventional plastic packaging in supermarkets for certain foods, such as dairy and meat products and ready-prepared meals.

María Eugenia Gil, an environmental activist with the Aguaclara Foundation, pointed out that “plastic is plastic,” although she said the local proposal is very useful for raising awareness among Venezuelans in a part of the country visited by many local and foreign tourists, and as a pilot project that could be replicated in more of Venezuela’s 335 municipalities.

With the ordinance, Carirubana is following in the footsteps of other places in Latin America that have also decided to abolish plastic bags.

In 2010, Mexico City ordered stores to charge customers for plastic bags, instead of giving them away free, and stipulated they must be biodegradable.

In Argentina, the province of Buenos Aires has forbidden supermarkets to give out plastic bags, and has ordered that those manufactured in future must be made of progressively more degradable materials.

The legislatures in Chile and Colombia are debating similar laws, while the Bogotá city government has launched a joint campaign with chain stores to replace polyethylene bags with other packaging.

The city government of Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, has also campaigned for this, although no ban has yet been approved.

Several large Brazilian cities have banned the most dangerously toxic types of bag, but there was a setback in July when a state court in Sao Paulo suspended the ban on plastic bags in shops within its jurisdiction, in response to pressure from plastics manufacturers in the Sao Paulo industrial association.

Baldayo said the measure adopted in Carirubana was influenced by the one taken on the nearby Dutch island of Aruba with the aim of keeping its beaches and tourist sites free of plastic waste.

The northeasterly trade winds that pass over Aruba on their way to the Venezuelan mainland blow across two other municipalities before they reach Punto Fijo, and the Carirubana municipal government wants these municipalities to adopt the same bye-law so that it applies uniformly on the entire Paraguaná peninsula.

A municipal commission is studying alternatives to plastic bags, including the use of natural fibres, and will carry out a campaign to coordinate with stores and inform the public, before penalties begin to be applied.

These range from compulsory attendance at lecture sessions to fines of up to 120 dollars for individuals, or 1,700 dollars for companies, that litter public spaces with plastic bags. Persons unable to pay cash will have to do community service, like cleaning up streets, parks and beaches.

Excerpt:

By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Aug 12 2011 (IPS)

The Argentine economy has grown steadily since 2003, and hundreds of thousands of social housing units have been built. Nevertheless, the protests and conflicts that periodically break out make it clear that the solutions have failed to keep up with the need for affordable housing

The Federal Planning Ministry reports that 617,660 housing units have been built nationwide since 2003, another 223,434 are under construction, and work is about to start on more than 22,000 additional units, benefiting a total of nearly four million people, 10 percent of the population of 40 million.

Nevertheless, demand has outstripped supply. The deficit is not only of housing, but of basic services like piped water, sanitation, heating and cooking gas, and rainwater drainage systems.

“Housing is being built, but it’s not sufficient to keep up with demographic changes,” Dan Adaszko, an expert on housing issues at the Catholic University of Argentina’s Observatory on Social Debt, told IPS.

Adaszko is the author of a study on “Housing conditions and access to goods and services in Argentina 2010”, recently published by the Observatory, which points out that the country’s high rates of economic growth have failed to guarantee access to decent housing.

The study says 20.5 percent of households have problems like overcrowding, lack of basic services, poor physical conditions of housing and lack of maintenance, or the fact that the family does not own the land, or the housing unit itself.

The problem is structural in nature, Adaszko said. Ten years ago, when the population stood at 36 million, the percentage of inadequate housing units was basically the same as today. In other words, the gap between supply and demand has not shrunk with time.

The report says some three million housing units are needed, to cover demand.

It also says there are other “irrefutable indicators” of the lag in making basic services available, and that there has only been “slight improvement” on that front in the last decade.

The study reports that nationwide, 12.4 percent of urban households lack piped water, 34.6 percent have no sewage services, 32.3 percent lack rainwater drainage systems, and 26.8 percent have no piped gas, used for heating and cooking.

Besides these challenges, many poor households face other problems such as exposure to polluting industries and open air dumps.

“The housing deficit is not the only aspect that has to be taken into account, when analysing a country’s housing problems,” the report underlines.

In this South American country, where 92 percent of the population is urban, the persistent deficit of housing and basic services is “unacceptable,” Adaszko said.

The report adds that, although public spending on affordable housing was resumed in 2002, “the deficit remains high.”

But “a broader, larger-scale programme is needed to compensate for four decades of failure to address the housing problem, which is concentrated in the outskirts of Buenos Aires and the poor provinces in the north of the country,” Adaszko said.

It is in the country’s poorest areas where serious social conflicts have broken out when squatters on land and in unfinished buildings have been forcibly evicted.

Two people were killed in November when the police in the northern province of Formosa evicted a group of indigenous people laying claim to their ancestral land.

And in December, a wave of land occupations, protests and police crackdowns broke out in Greater Buenos Aires, leading to the death of two protesters.

But the most serious incident happened two weeks ago in the northwest province of Jujuy, where some 700 families were living in camps on 15 hectares of land owned by the Ledesma sugar company outside the town of Libertador General San Martín.

The families were brutally forced to leave the premises by the police, who set fire to their belongings and caused the deaths of four people and injured 67 others.

As a result of the incident, the provincial legislature urgently expropriated 40 hectares of the vast properties owned by Ledesma.

But the wave of land occupations and camps set up by people without any housing options had already spread to eight other areas in Jujuy, highlighting the serious deficit in housing in that province. One of the settlements was set up by the wives of police officers.

“The deficit is concentrated in the provinces of northern Argentina and in the metropolitan area of the city of Buenos Aires, where sewage services, water, gas and paved roads are also needed,” said Adaszko. “It is not enough to just build housing; what is needed is comprehensive urban development.”

The regular outbreaks of unrest show that, even during a time of high economic growth and with a national government that puts a priority on public works and social housing, it is hard for construction efforts to keep up with need.

From 2003 to 2008, Argentina’s economy grew at an average of 8.5 percent per year. And despite the impact of the global economic crisis, the national economy even managed to grow in 2009 – 0.9 percent, compared to -1.9 percent for Latin America as a whole, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Growth for 2011 is forecast by the government at eight percent.

The late centre-left president Néstor Kirchner took office in 2003, and his wife Cristina Fernández became president in late 2007.

Adaszko said some provinces, like Córdoba, Mendoza and San Luis, have come up with different political solutions. In San Luis, for example, the provincial government has provided new housing units in exchange for token monthly payments.

But in other provinces, a number of structural factors come together, such as heavy concentration of land ownership, deep-rooted poverty, and overall lack of development. In Jujuy, for instance, one of the country’s poorest provinces, land is mainly in the hands of large agribusiness companies, likes Ledesma.

“In some districts, you find officials who say they have the money to build, but no land to build on,” he said.

Publicly owned land is often located far from cities, and thus from workplaces, schools, health centres, transportation and urban infrastructure.

“Sometimes the solution is to push through a law on expropriation” of idle land, said Adaszko, who added that there should be a move from a housing policy to an urban development policy, which would guarantee not only the right to housing but to all basic urban services.

Excerpt:

As London simmered under a heavy police lid last night, there were some areas of the city that had no need for flashing blue lights and riot shields to maintain the ragged sense of calm.

With much of the violence focused on the other UK cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and Nottingham, a battened-down London enjoyed a relatively quiet night on Tuesday, 24 hours after the city was rocked by some of its worst rioting in decades.

Key to that calm was a massive police presence. Some 16,000 officers were deployed on the streets, nearly triple the presence of the previous evening when officers fought running battles with masked street fighters and failed to prevent widespread looting and arson.

But though there were officers visibly standing sentry on street corners in most affected areas, the forces of law and order seemed happy to leave the battered district of Dalston to its own devices – because Dalston, it seems, can take care of itself.

The turning point for Dalston, a generally low-income district of the capital that is home to a significant ethnic Turkish population, came at around 11pm on Monday. As looting and violence terrorised swathes of the city, the shopkeepers of Dalston decided they had had enough.

I arrived in Dalston minutes earlier to check out reports of a bus being set alight by a gang of youths who then went on the rampage, attacking shops and restaurants along one of the district’s main roads. The reports appeared accurate; police were already cordoning off the burned vehicle.

Members of the local Turkish community, who had poured onto the streets in the wake of the violence, were reluctant to talk to journalists on the record about what had just happened. But as anger boiled to the surface, some recounted making a stand against the gang of attackers.

Then came the real action.

As I stood among the milling Turks, the gang returned, brazenly strolling through the crowds. Insults were exchanged then, after a bizarre interlude in which one of the gang members offered to shake hands with a few bemused locals, they walked off.

Turks in control

The street suddenly exploded into life. Scores of Turkish men, many carrying makeshift weapons, began giving chase, their whoops and shouts only just drowned out by the sounds of police vehicles, sirens blaring, driving over debris scattered in the road.

It was hard to see what happened next. Wary of getting caught up in any violence, I hung back. Police were on the scene, but it seemed the Turks were in control of the situation. Minutes later, as many came trickling back, the shopkeepers claimed victory. “The Turks kick them out of the scene, bruv,” one shouted. “That’s it. All done.” Overhead, people shouted down from apartment windows: “You guys are heroes.” Certainly, for all the trouble seen that night, the area seemed safer than other volatile districts I also visited.

Fast forward to Tuesday night and the sidewalks of Dalston’s Kingsland High Street were again teeming with Turkish men, some carrying sticks that could be used as weapons. Police, highly visible elsewhere across the city, were keeping a low profile (one armoured police convoy was applauded as it passed through the road shortly after 11pm).

Unlike many high streets in the capital, where businesses brought down the shutters in the early afternoon to minimise the risk of looting, many of the the restaurants and shops in Dalston were defiantly open.

Although Dalston appears to have stood alone in its resistance to the gangs on Monday, there were reports that other districts had on Tuesday begun following the Turks’ lead.

Local radio reported that about 2,000 people in the riot-hit southern suburbs of Lewisham and Eltham were “reclaiming the streets”. In Enfield, another trouble spot to the north, there were claims of smaller-scale acts of retaliation and to the west, photographs posted online showed about 100 members of the Sikh community rallying against potential rioters.

Elsewhere in the city, during daylight hours, there was a broader sense of defiance, with scores of people volunteering to join co- ordinated clear up efforts in their neighbourhoods.

Some observers have suggested that other communities – whether based on ethnicity, religion or otherwise – could in coming days contribute to the sense that Londoners are reclaiming the city from the troublemakers.

But it remains to be seen whether this would match the aggressive stance which the Turkish community has taken.

Lavish praise

Certainly, under different circumstances, the actions of Dalston’s shopkeepers could be seen as a risky form of vigilantism that perhaps has the potential to incite longer-term communal violence in London. This would certainly spell further trouble for a city that relies on tolerance to unite its many culturally diverse communities.

But for the time being, many Dalston residents have been lavishing praise on the men unofficially policing their district. Twitter, widely used by many of the young “hipsters” who have made Dalston their home, was on Tuesday buzzing about the events of the previous night.

“Our local shopkeeper refused to close. He said ‘we are Turkish’ as explanation,” said one post. Another added: “Reports of heroic scenes on Dalston High Street. Turkish families lining the streets to oppose riots. What great Londoners.”

Another, along similar lines, read: “Upper Dalston looks busier than a Saturday night with all the Turks on patrol! Thanks for Keeping Dalston safe!” followed by: “Who needs riot police when you’ve got Turkish shop owners.”

One posting characterised the showdown between the Turkish restaurateurs and their masked adversaries as “baklavas versus balaclavas,” while another summed up prevailing sentiments with “Say what you will about letting Turkey getting in the EU, they’re there when we need them.”

Perhaps extrapolating the policing skills of London’s Turks somewhat implausibly to the level of international diplomacy, one post mused: “If only Turkey can bring to Syria in the next few days what they’ve brought to Dalston and London in the last few.”

In what is perhaps the ultimate endorsement of the Turkish community’s efforts to impose a sense of normality on their cherished stretch of northeast London, there were reports last night that Gilbert and George – an eccentric elderly pair of avant-garde artists who dine nightly in the same Dalston Turkish eatery – were on Tuesday night placing their regular orders.

For a community that pulled out the stops to protect itself on London’s darkest night in decades, their restaurant reappearance was no doubt a moment to savour.

*Published under an agreement with Al-Jazeera.

By Patricia Grogg
CIENFUEGOS, Cuba, Aug 5 2011 (IPS)

The city of Cienfuegos, known in Cuba as the “Pearl of the South”, is unique for its spotless cleanliness, the orderly grid pattern of its streets, its 19th century architecture and its air of “Grande Dame” elegance. Now its past splendours, ravaged by time or left to deteriorate because of economic difficulties, are being restored.

Restored local parliament building in historic centre of Cienfuegos. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Located 250 km southeast of Havana, the city was founded by French settlers in 1819, and its historic centre was declared a World Cultural Heritage site in 2005 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

Gaining acceptance on the UNESCO Cultural Heritage of Humanity list was not an easy task, said Irán Millán, an architect who has worked for the city for more than three decades. “At the outset people assumed that only ancient cities counted as heritage, not those as modern as Cienfuegos,” he told IPS.

The small but tenacious team responsible for protecting cultural heritage in Cienfuegos got their first taste of victory in 1995, when the city’s historic centre was declared a national monument. “We kept going in the conviction that our contemporary heritage had value, and we persuaded the authorities to appreciate that,” he said.

Millán has been the city conservator for Cienfuegos since the office for heritage restoration was opened in 2005. He said the fact that most of his fellow architects trained in Italy influenced Cuba’s policy of preserving buildings without evicting the people who live in them, so that the residents reap the benefits of urban renewal.

“We cannot remove the population from the historic centre; that would take all the life and joy out of it,” he said. The strategy puts more pressure on the meagre resources available, and sometimes only façades of buildings have actually been painted in the “cuarterías” (tenements) in the heritage zone, where hundreds of families live in crowded conditions, all looking forward to a better life.

The policy of the office is for businesses and organisations in the historic centre to contribute the funds they internally allocate to conservation, towards the heritage restoration and development plans designed by this authority.

“If a firm wants to renovate premises, we give them the go-ahead on condition that they cooperate with the heritage office’s plans, and undertake the repair and renewal of the sidewalk and specified housing units in the vicinity,” he explained.

So far, resources have permitted the restoration of 46 percent of the 70-hectare World Heritage zone and 47 percent of the 90-hectare national monument area. Improvements have been made to 1,480 homes and 146 workplaces, and 45 “cuarterías” have been partially or totally renovated.

Coordinated efforts are helping to realise the “dream project” of pedestrianising Street 29, previously called Santa Isabel Street, and restoring it “just like it used to be,” said Millán. This thoroughfare connects the colonial-era pier with Martí Park, a large open space at the centre of the city street grid, named for Cuban national hero José Martí, that was once the “plaza de armas” or military drilling ground.

The remodelling of Street 29 will provide space for self-employed people engaged in private enterprise, a growing sector in Cuba as the state drastically reduces its payroll, on the rationale that local people will have a vested interest in looking after public property.

The project also includes an art gallery, pharmacy and coffee shop, to be ready when the newly-restored pedestrian street is completed.

Eighteen families living in a “cuartería” close to the coffee shop are also pitching in with a will. “We are working for better conditions. We will have more space and our walls and roofing will be solid, and we will have separate water pipes supplying each household,” Oslayda Miranda, who lives with her married son and two grandchildren, told IPS.

According to Miranda, at least one member of each of the families must work directly on the reconstruction, on contract to the Cuban government, which supplies the building materials, including bathroom fittings. “But in fact we all work: I help my son do the plastering, and I also do the cooking,” she stressed.

“It’s very hard work and we still have a lot to do. What is being rescued here is human beings, rather than bricks and mortar,” said Millán, the city conservator.

Cienfuegos contains architectural gems like the Thomas Terry theatre, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, the government palace, and the Lion House, so called because of its imposing feline statues.

And then there is the Paseo del Prado, leading from the town entrance to the Malecón – the seaside promenade around the bay – which after sundown is a popular spot for lovers’ trysts. Above the normally calm waters of Cienfuegos bay, the fortress of Our Lady of the Angels, erected for protection against Caribbean pirates, stands guard over the city.

“Recovering our heritage is not the same thing as worshipping the past. We are committed to improving people’s quality of life,” said Millán. This has awakened interest in conservation and restoration work in Cienfuegos, he said.

Millán said international development aid provides complementary funding that contributes decisively to the city’s development plan.

The office of heritage and restoration relies on state funding for its work, so the projects department has developed its own strategies to channel “the support of culture-loving organisations and individuals who want to help raise our people’s standard of living, whether or not they identify politically with Cuba,” he said.

Participating organisations include the Franco-Cuban Cooperation Association, the Canadian embassy, the Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Development and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID). According to Millán, the Franco-Cuban Cooperation Association has adopted the skilled trades school as a key project.

The trades school, which is being rebuilt by its own students, trains young people in the special skills needed for the heritage office’s restoration work.

Millán said the school is a shining example of harmonious coordination of the efforts of different individuals and groups to employ young people who were neither working nor studying and reintegrate them into society, with guaranteed jobs at the end of the process. In Millán’s view, “That is the highest accomplishment of all, in addition to getting the students to appreciate and relate to their local heritage,” he said.

The official hopes his office will qualify as a “special treatment unit” in next year’s budget, with greater financial control and independence that would confer more stability and sustainability on its projects.

If funding is placed on a more favourable footing, the Fernandina Radio station, run by the heritage restoration office, might enjoy some expansion. At the moment reception of the radio signal is limited to the main shopping avenue in Cienfuegos. The station airs publicity and news about the historic centre for one hour every morning, and once an hour it plays music by Cuban singer-songwriter Benny Moré (1919-1963).

Excerpt:

The endeavour gave a deeper meaning to her life and turned her into an internationally recognised community organiser. Nevertheless, the real wish of Margarita Barrientos is that there would be more need for soup kitchens for the hungry, like the one she founded in the capital of Argentina.

Margarita Barrientos, left, with a family that frequents her soup kitchen. Credit: Marcela Valente /IPS

“This shouldn’t have to exist,” Barrientos told IPS at the Los Piletones soup kitchen, which she runs. “What there should be is decent work, so that every man and woman could go out and earn a living. But until that is possible, we’ll have to keep this going.”

The soup kitchen and the rest of the installations of the Margarita Barrientos Foundation are in Villa Soldati, a poor district in the south of Buenos Aires where the Los Piletones slum is located. The Foundation is reached by pitted, muddy dirt roads full of piles of garbage.

The 49-year-old Barrientos came to Buenos Aires alone when she was just 11 years old, from the northern province of Santiago del Estero where she was born into a Toba indigenous family. In the city she lived and worked on the streets and often went hungry. When she was 14 she met the man who is now her husband. They have 12 children – 10 biological sons and daughters and two children “of my heart,” she says.

In 1996, in response to the hunger and dire poverty she saw around her, Barrientos starting distributing among her neighbours leftover bread and baked goods that a bakery donated to her husband along his daily route collecting cardboard and other waste products to sell for recycling.

The Buenos Aires and Argentine governments supply part of the food, and the rest is covered by private donations: of food, mattresses, clothing, blankets, furniture, computers, books, building materials and medicine.

“Los Piletones” serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, but most of the guests don’t eat there – they show up at the specified time and pick up pots or plastic bowls of food, which they take home to their families.

One woman standing in line with her four young children tells IPS that they are from Paraguay, and that her husband found a job and she was able to register their kids in school but that they do not yet have legal residency papers. She stays home to raise the kids, she says.

In the kitchen, three huge pots are steaming. A young woman stands on a high stool to stir the food with a large wooden paddle, using both hands. Other women are busy cutting up chicken, peeling potatoes, or mopping the floor.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Census, 9.9 percent of Argentina’s 40 million people live in poverty, and 2.5 percent in extreme poverty. But trade unions and other independent bodies say the poverty rate is at least twice that high.

Across the street from the soup kitchen are the Foundation’s other installations: a health centre that offers dental services, medical checkups, and gynaecological and pediatric services, and a well-stocked pharmacy.

“People can pick up condoms here without asking,” Barrientos says, pointing to a box in the waiting room. The nurse is a volunteer, and the doctors serve the Foundation through an agreement with two private universities.

There is also a pasta factory and a day care centre for children between the ages of seven months and five years. The nine teachers are paid by the city government, and the cook and cleaning woman are local volunteers.

Many of the children are raised by mothers on their own, some of whom work outside the home. “Women have the resiliency to handle things on our own,” Barrientos says, laughing.

Next door is the library, computer room, and day centre and dining room for the elderly, which has a knitting corner and large TV set that is turned on but has no picture. “They cut off our cable service because we were behind on the bills, but now we’re all caught up and I don’t know why they haven’t come to connect it again,” she says, apologising to the people there.

Raúl Cabrera, 58, comes every day from González Catán, ten train stations away on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. “I’ve been coming for eight years. I have lunch and take dinner home with me,” he tells IPS.

He has seven grown-up children, and takes advantage of his day trips to Villa Soldati to visit the ones who live in this neighbourhood. Cabrera, who lives alone, manages to earn a few coins fixing bicycles.

“Food is so expensive. One kilo of bread costs 12 pesos (three dollars) now, and a kilo of beef is 30 pesos (seven dollars),” Cabrera says. He worked in the construction industry and as a garbage picker collecting and selling cardboard. Now he has neither a job nor a pension.

Barrientos says the Universal Child Allowance (AUH) has done a great deal to improve conditions for poor families in the area.

The AUH is a monthly cash transfer from the government that covers children up to the age of 18 of unemployed parents and informal sector workers, rural workers and domestics with incomes below the minimum monthly wage. The allowance is around 55 dollars per child, up to a maximum of five children, and is conditional on school attendance and up-to-date vaccinations.

But Barrientos does not see cash transfers as an effective tool, in the long run. “Nearly all of the people who come to the soup kitchen receive the AUH and take food home, but if they get everything for free, they won’t understand what it means to make sacrifices and they won’t have incentives to work,” she argues.

She says this despite the fact that her Foundation asks for nothing in exchange for the assistance and services it offers. “A pregnant 15-year-old, who already receives the AUH for herself – why would she think of working?” she comments.

But the 30 women who help Barrientos run the soup kitchen clearly know the value of hard work. Although they do not receive cash wages, they benefit broadly from the donations.

“Women are much more socially-oriented than men, who won’t work if they aren’t paid. Women like to take things on their shoulders and bring food home, and help their communities. These women are an example,” she says, visibly moved.

One of the soup kitchen workers is Isabel Benítez, a 38-year-old widowed mother of four. When her husband was in the hospital and her family was barely surviving, her oldest daughter came here every day to pick up meals for the whole family.

“I didn’t know Margarita, but my daughter brought home meals, blankets, mattresses. We didn’t have anything, not even food. One day my daughter said ‘mamá, there are women working there, why don’t you go?’ So I came,” she tells IPS.

Benítez explained her situation to Barrientos, who told her: “Bring an apron tomorrow and you can start.” She has been working in the soup kitchen for four years now, and says she receives “huge support.”

“What I bring home is more than what I could earn, and I feel useful helping people who are worse off than me,” she says. “We learn so much from Señora Margarita, who does the impossible to make sure no one leaves with empty hands.”

By IPS Correspondents
LISBON, Aug 2 2011 (IPS)

“The crisis is only for some of us” has become a commonly heard phrase in Portugal, following the drastic fiscal adjustment policies imposed in May by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund as the condition for a 112 billion dollar financial bailout.

And while vendors of luxury vehicles worry that they cannot fill their customer’ orders as quickly as they would like, the Food Bank Against Hunger is facing a similar problem: it cannot keep up with the demand from the hungry knocking at the door.

Up until 2009, the food bank only served the poorest families. But now middle class families, swallowing their pride, are coming forward to ask for food, medical assistance and spiritual support.

The non-profit Portuguese Association for Consumer Protection (DECO) receives daily requests for help from people who cannot keep up payments on their debts to the banks and other financial institutions. In June alone, the homes of 3,000 families were repossessed because they defaulted on their mortgages.

In the past 25 years, Portugal managed to escape from its position as a peripheral country on the margins of global trade, and seemed to have a promising future. But then the economy plummeted in the 2009 crisis.

Inevitably, thousands of middle class people became the “new poor”, as they were hit hardest by the tax hikes, wage cuts, the loss of the holiday bonuses – two extra monthly salaries a year – and lay-offs without notice.

Since it joined the EU in 1986, Portugal has made remarkable progress. However, economists are now saying that its economic development was more illusory than real.

As Portugal received billions in structural funds from the EU, easy credit financed mobile phones, cable television, freeways, cars and houses, all bought on the instalment payment plan.

Agricultural and industrial development were sacrificed to unbridled consumerism, creating a huge sector of nouveau riche, who took pride in the fact that the country has the greatest number of freeways per square kilometre and the biggest shopping malls in Europe, along with modern football stadiums and other shiny new constructions.

But this apparent wealth is a mirage, bearing no relation to economic realities in Portugal, analysts say.

After three decades of living far beyond its means, the time has come for Portuguese society to pay the bill for excessive consumerism and the lack of vision and strategies for real development, on the part of politicians and the business community, they warn.

The crisis reached such proportions that credit, which before 2009 was offered almost automatically, without any assessment of the risk of non-payment, is now systematically denied to the same individuals, small businesses and small farms that, DECO complains, were previously the victims of incessant campaigns by the banks to convince them to take on unlimited debt.

The consequences soon made themselves felt. Cut off from credit, hundreds of companies declared bankruptcy, ruining the owners of small businesses and tossing thousands of workers into the ranks of the jobless.

Portugal’s economic indicators are now terrible: unemployment stands at 12.4 percent, the highest level in 30 years, and the annual inflation rate of 3.4 percent is the highest in two decades.

At the same time, however, the assets of the 25 richest people in Portugal grew this year by an average of 17.8 percent, to a combined total of 25 billion dollars, equivalent to 10 percent of GDP in this country of 10.6 million people, one-quarter of whom are subsisting below the EU poverty line.

The U.S. Misery Index (the unemployment rate added to the inflation rate) ranks Portugal fifth in the world among the countries with the greatest decline in economic well-being, surpassed only by Egypt, New Zealand, Ireland and Ukraine.

In the first quarter of this year, 3,104 companies went bankrupt, according to information released Jul. 29 by the Portuguese branch of the Compagnie Française d’Assurance pour le Commerce Extérieur (COFACE), a French export credit insurance agency.

The government of former socialist prime minister José Sócrates (2005-June 2011) adopted drastic measures to contain the spiralling deficit. But even more stringent adjustments were implemented as part of the painful austerity package introduced by his successor, conservative Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho.

In addition, fiscal stimulus measures to boost demand have been scrapped, and it is assumed the private sector will have to step in on that front. “It’s a simple economic theory, with a monetarist vision: let the money flow to whoever knows how to use it, in other words, the business community and the banks,” Mario Gomes, a professor of economics at the University of Lisbon, told IPS.

The rightwing government now in power “has in a short space of time shown its deepest intentions: to radically eliminate part of the social state, cut wages and dismantle state companies, which are vital to economic stability,” he said.

Are these policies similar to those followed in Britain by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990), based on the theories developed by the Chicago school of economics and prominent economist Milton Friedman? IPS asked.

Gomes replied: “It is an ultra liberal strategy, like a combination of the reforms implemented by some South American dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s, but introduced more gradually.”

Over the last 10 years Portugal’s economic growth has been slow, and the economy went into recession this year and will remain so into 2012, according to forecasts. “The development cycle that started with integration into Europe in 1986, expanding foreign trade by taking advantage of labour cost differentials, is exhausted,” Gomes said.

With EU funds, “Portugal modernised and expanded infrastructure, solved its housing problems and doubled the value of its tourism industry,” he said.

“But although it had plentiful resources to modernise the productive sector, it neglected industry, agriculture and fishing, causing deindustrialisation,” he criticised.

Most economists concur with this analysis. They say cutting back on public spending is not sufficient to stem the country’s economic decline, and that measures are urgently needed to expand industry, develop services and rationalise farming.

The two powerful trade union federations have announced plans for protests and strikes, while independent movements vow they will be a constant thorn in the side of the Passos Coelho administration.

João Martins, a young activist belonging to the Geração à rasca (“Generation in Trouble”, or “Desperate Generation”) movement, told IPS that the “indignant” people’s protest movement in Spain – also called the May 15 Movement – emerged out of “our organisation, which arose spontaneously in Portugal two months earlier than in Spain.”

The Generation in Trouble movement attracted thousands of young people, invited through the on-line social networks and mobile phones, to a demonstration on Mar. 12. They were quickly joined by parents, grandparents and others, and in just a few hours 300,000 people took over the centre of Lisbon, Porto and six other Portuguese cities, chanting the slogan “a rua e nossa” (“the street is ours”).

Martins predicted that “the savageness, blindness and insensitivity of this government’s measures will inevitably provoke another March 12, and the street will once again be ours.”

Excerpt:

By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 22 2011 (IPS)

Community organisations say the major infrastructure works for the 2014 football World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil do not reflect the spirit of the social legacy promised by the government and business community, which project 68 billion dollars in economic benefits from the first event alone.

Favela next to middle-class neighbourhood, seen from Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Creative Commons

Several social organisations created the national “World Cup and Olympics People’s Committee”, to which Rocha belongs, to exercise oversight over the infrastructure works for the mega-events and defend poor families who have been evicted to make room for stadiums, roads and other infrastructure.

“We want information and guarantees of participation in the projects,” said Rocha, a community organiser from one of the 750 favelas or shanty towns which are home to 1.5 million of the six million people in Rio proper (Greater Rio has a population of 11 million).

“We want to know ahead of time where we are to be resettled, and we want the right to prior, fair indemnification,” said Rocha.

Amnesty International has denounced compulsory evictions of poor families squatting on land designated for infrastructure for the sports events.

Rocha complained that the public does not have access to information about the infrastructure and transportation projects, which makes it difficult to establish the number of people to be evicted in the different neighbourhood. But the People’s Committee estimates that some 20,000 families will be affected by public works like stadium construction, highways and the upgrading of the port.

In a hearing before the attorney general’s office of the state of Rio de Janeiro, the affected families mentioned the problems caused by the construction of the Transoeste highway, an expressway that will link neighbourhoods in the western zone of Rio, and the Transcarioca, which will link the north zone of the city to the international airport on the west side.

According to Rocha and other critics, the major engineering projects will only benefit a few neighbourhoods, companies and social groups, and not the majority of the population.

The community organiser argues that what the people of Rio need are efficient mass transit systems and sports facilities that are accessible to all, especially the poor.

The People’s Committee complains that the evictions have failed to respect the city law that guarantees relocation to nearby areas, in order to “respect the history and experiences of families that have lived for years in a certain neighbourhood.”

Furthermore, “the indemnification payments are ridiculous, too small to allow the favela dwellers to purchase decent housing elsewhere,” Rocha said.

She also protested “violence committed by the city government against the communities.” A municipal committee was set up this month to investigate complaints of human rights violations resulting from the evictions and infrastructure works.

The city government’s secretary of public works, Jorge Bittar, admitted that there have been problems, but said that once they are overcome, the Olympic Games and World Cup will offer “an opportunity to show that the city can improve from the social, environmental and urbanisation standpoints, addressing the needs of the poor.”

That is the oft-repeated official line, and numbers are trotted out to support it.

The Sports Ministry projects 68 billion dollars in benefits for Brazil from the World Cup, a figure that includes investment in public and private infrastructure works, a rise in consumption, and growth of the services sector.

It also estimates that the football championship, including the preparations for it in the 12 host cities, will lead to a rise in tax revenues, generating an additional 29 billion dollars in direct taxes and 10 billion dollars in indirect taxes.

In addition, some 600,000 foreign tourists are expected to visit Brazil for the World Cup, bringing the country an additional two billion dollars. And the tournament will create an estimated 332,000 direct and permanent jobs and 381,000 temporary jobs in 2014.

“No one would push so hard to host a World Cup or Olympic Games or spend so much money on upgrading if the aim wasn’t the most important thing: leaving a social legacy,” Rio de Janeiro state secretary of sports and tourism Marcia Lins recently told a group of businesspeople.

Lins was speaking at one of a series of meetings being held in the state on the World Cup and the Olympics, organised by the Service of Support to Micro and Small Companies (SEBRAE), which has a programme to help this economic sector take advantage of the opportunities offered by the two events.

SEBRAE president Luiz Barreto told IPS that this is a great chance for a sector that accounts for 20 percent of GDP and 50 percent of all workers who have a work card – the Carteira de Trabalho e Previdência Social, which affords them full benefits – in this country of 191 million people.

And with the growth in industries like civil construction and tourism, “that proportion could grow to 23, 24 or 25 percent of GDP over the next few years,” Barreto said, citing a study by the independent Getulio Vargas Foundation.

“We are working hard on relations between the public and private sectors, in terms of both large and small companies, in order to have the best possible World Cup, in and outside the stadiums,” he said.

Famous around the globe for his performance in the world’s leading stadiums, former football forward José Roberto Gama de Oliveira, better known as Bebeto, who is now a Rio de Janeiro state deputy or lawmaker for the Democratic Labour Party, also wants to participate in the process.

“Deputado Bebeto”, as he is popularly known now, was behind the creation of a state legislative committee to monitor the economic, environmental and social effects of the World Cup, Olympics and 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, which will also be held in Brazil.

“Football was my life,” Bebeto told IPS. “I am very familiar with the difficulties these events will pose,” said the veteran forward, who sported Brazil’s yellow and green jersey in three World Cups and two Olympic Games.

“Everyone will have their eyes on Rio de Janeiro and we have to do things right,” he stressed.

Bebeto wants to make sure that the transportation system created for the sports events takes into account the real needs of the people of Rio.

“Football is in our blood. And now that we will host a World Cup and will be playing in our own country, we have an opportunity to show that we can do things right, not only on the field,” he added.

To do this, Rocha said, the priority must be put on transparency in spending, and on incorporating the social dimension.

And for this, she argued, Brazil has to learn from experiences like the 2007 Pan American Games, held in Rio. At that time, the city government evicted many local residents from the Canal do Anil favela, with “the argument that the homes were irregular constructions along a river bank,” she recalled.

“The Pan American Village was built next to the community, with public funds. Today, those apartments are in ruins, and are uninhabitable,” she said.

Excerpt:

By Julio Godoy
BERLIN, Jul 21 2011 (IPS)

Since the end of World War II, and especially since the 1960s, the Kreuzberg district in Berlin has been a melting pot of cultures, with residents hailing from the Balkans, Central Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Tomatoes and lettuce growing in the Rostlaube "container farm". Credit: Courtesy of Malzfabrik

“Often the seeds for our vegetables are given to us by neighbors who bring them back with them from trips to their home countries,” Robert Shaw, one of the garden’s founders and coordinators, told Tierramérica. “Other times we order the seeds by catalogue.”

Shaw, a documentary filmmaker, and professional photographer Marco Clausen started up the garden in 2009 by clearing a 6,000-square-meter vacant lot of community land located next to Moritzplatz, which had been a wasteland for decades.

“With the help of the local residents and friends we collected and removed two tons of garbage that had accumulated on the lot over the course of many years,” said Shaw.

After a trip to Cuba, where Shaw learned about the development of urban agriculture in Havana, he and Clausen came up with the idea for the Prinzessinnengarten (“Princess Garden”), named after the street on which it is located, Prinzessinnenstrasse, which they envisioned as a community project in which the whole neighborhood could participate.

Urban farming in Cuba is in a whole other class. In the first quarter of 2010 alone, urban farms and gardens on the Caribbean island produced 362,608 tons of vegetables and provided employment for around 300,000 people. Based on the success of these initiatives, the Cuban government has ambitious plans for suburban farming projects to help further reduce the need for food imports and work towards the goal of food sovereignty.

In Mortizplatz, meanwhile, “the garden doesn’t belong to anyone,” explained Shaw. “We manage it, but anyone who wants to can participate, because the goal is to provide locally produced organic vegetables to the people who live in the district and promote community work and the revival of organic agriculture traditions that have been forgotten in cities like Berlin.”

This means that anyone who works in the garden receives, as compensation, the chance to buy organic vegetables and herbs at lower prices than in the local marketplace. No chemical substances are used in the garden, and because the food grown is consumed right in the neighborhood, the costs of transportation and the associated emissions of carbon dioxide are drastically reduced or eliminated.

During the winter, the transportable vegetable plots are moved into an old covered market that has been recently remodeled and now serves as a community centre.

A wide range of crops are produced, including 15 varieties of potatoes, 15 varieties of tomatoes, 10 varieties of carrots and squash, numerous varieties of cabbage and beets, and herbs like parsley, mint, savory, basil and cilantro.

In addition to the garden, the Prinzessinnengarten encompasses a café and restaurant where a Japanese cook prepares soups and other dishes made exclusively from the vegetables grown there.

Shaw and Clausen’s team also works in cooperation with similar projects in other cities in Germany and abroad, organises seminars with universities, and advises Berlin-based organisations in the remodeling of gardens and green spaces.

“Our premise is that everyone can learn from everyone,” said Shaw. He added that he inherited his love of gardening from his grandmother, who was “obsessed with food self-sufficiency after the experience of the war.”

The Prinzessinnengarten is one of many organic agriculture projects flourishing in numerous cities across Europe. In Berlin itself, another initiative organised by UrbanFarmers, a group based in Zurich, Switzerland, uses aquaponics, which combines traditional aquaculture or fish farming with hydroponics, the cultivation of vegetables in water. The result is a sustainable food production system that reduces both water consumption and waste.

The two activities are combined in the Rostlaube or “container farm”, in which vegetables are grown in a greenhouse mounted on top of an old industrial container converted into a fish farming tank.

“Our goal is to help people remember that we can produce food using the smallest possible amount of chemical substances, without fertilisers or pesticides or antibiotics,” UrbanFarmers director Roman Gaus told Tierramérica.

In the aquaculture tank, the ammonia in the fish feces is converted into nitrates by bacteria, resulting in an excellent natural fertiliser for the vegetables and herbs grown above them.

The aim of UrbanFarmers – whose motto is “good food from the roof” – is to take advantage of all free urban spaces, from rooftops and vacant lots to abandoned industrial parks, to grow food.

The Rostlaube produces around 200 kilos of vegetables and 60 kilos of fish a year, but “it is only a model,” said Gaus.

“In a city like Basel, in Switzerland, there are two million square meters of rooftops that could easily be transformed into gardens and fish farming tanks,” he noted. Using just five percent of this area, or 100,000 square meters, “it would be possible to provide vegetables, fruits and fish to 25 percent of the local population, using almost no chemical inputs and with minimal emissions of greenhouse gases, since there is no transportation involved.”

Nicolas Leschke, assistant director of Malzfabrik, the sustainable economy business center that houses the Rostlaube in Berlin, explained that a local fish species was chosen for the project to avoid additional costs.

“That’s why we chose the common carp (Cyprinus carpio), which is commonly found in the lakes and rivers around Berlin and is very easy to raise,” he told Tierramérica while snacking on a tomato grown in the greenhouse that sits over the fish tank.

Almost all of the inputs in the process are recycled, except for the fish food, vegetable seeds and water filter, where the ammonia is converted into nitrates. “Even the electricity to power the filter can be generated with solar panels,” he added.

Similar projects are sprouting up in other European cities like Amsterdam and Paris.

* IPS correspondent. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.

Excerpt:

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Jul 17 2011 (IPS)

The long boardwalk, balmy sea air and ebb and flow of water under the bridge, but most of all the festive carnival-like atmosphere of people enjoying the Karachi sunset, are images that stand in deep contrast to the violence this metropolis recently witnessed.

The images abound in the Port Grand Food and Entertainment Complex built in the centre of old Karachi along the waterfront on what was once the 1,400-ft Old Napier Mole Bridge, more commonly known as the Native Jetty.

“It conjures up an image of Pier 39 which I visited last summer,” says a 19-year-old college student who came to see the place with a group of friends. Her reference was to the popular tourist point in San Francisco, California.

“The idea is to revive the culture and traditions of old Karachi,” says 59-year old Shahid Firoz, the chief executive of the enterprise spread out over a 200,000-sq-ft area that was once a garbage dump and a regular hangout for junkies.

While many people are delighted at the transformation, others have criticised the project for various reasons, including the high entrance fee and the fact that Firoz had to get foreigners to build the project.

The bridge was built in the mid-1800s by the British to connect mainland Karachi to the harbour. Having outlived its utility in 1996 after the Jinnah Bridge was completed, the Karachi Port Trust decided to demolish the old one.

The idea of “urban regeneration” was floated to developers again in 2000 but there were no takers. This was during President Pervez Musharraf’s time, recalls Firoz. “When there are too many stakeholders, things fail to get delivered,” he said.

Among those who stood up to demand that the bridge be restored as “an architectural space” was Firoz, who grew up in Karachi with “good memories.” He used his own money, making it easier to get things done, he said.

Pointing to a spot under a huge majestic 150-year old banyan tree, Firoz said, “It was a place where people carried out black magic. It was not easy to get rid of these people.”

Today, Napier’s Tavern, an exclusive club for members only, has been constructed under the tree using the old wood and stone of the original bridge and designed so that it “matches the contours of the tree.”

Though the initiative is a purely commercial venture with eateries, an art gallery, crafts display and indoor mall, Firoz insists the intentions are altruistic as well. “You do some things in life for passion,” and also to “make people happy around you.”

He has certainly made many people happy as the place has received a tremendous response in terms of being a crowd-puller, even only two months after it opened on May 28.

There is a set entry fee of 300 rupees (3.5 dollars) per person, out of which 200 is consumable for food or any item at the shops which Firoz says is “a screening” to ward off spoilers.

But not everyone is happy with this. Visitor Reshma Tabani pointed out that the management could lower the entrance fee till more restaurants have been opened and people can use the redeemable entrance fee to foot part of the restaurant bill.

“Right now, the place does not have enough restaurants to cater to the huge crowd entering the place,” she said. “During dinner time, there is a waiting period of a minimum of an hour in any of the restaurants. There is not much to do to bide your time.”

Another visitor added: “What if I want to visit the art gallery and not eat anything? I find the entrance ticket of 300 rupees too high.”

“We need public spaces but not expensive commercial ones. This one is a little expensive for a middle- class family outing,” pointed out Niilofur Farrukh, an art historian and editor of art magazine NuktaArt. “If it’s the city’s land then it should be used for everyone and not just people who can afford it,” she said.

Though the city had many well-known architects and urban planners, Firoz decided to shop elsewhere and engaged an architectural firm in the United States, with landscaping by an Austrian and lighting by Italians.

“Does the city have anything of this scale to show?” he asks, and then elaborates, “I needed a team with exposure, experience and capacity and I couldn’t find it here.”

Yasmeen Lari, national advisor to UNESCO and director of the Heritage Foundation that documents and conserves the traditional and historic environment of Pakistan, says it does not really matter who designed it as long as the “authenticity of the place is retained.”

“There is no harm in making it a dream world as long as a link to history is maintained,” she added.

An old staircase long turned “public urinal” has been converted into an air-conditioned art gallery.

But urban planner and architect Arif Hasan took serious exception to the way the “public monument” and urban space have so completely been hidden from passersby. “It’s a sin to have blocked the view of the harbour and destroyed public interaction. It reeks of insensitivity to the urban environment in both the social and the physical sense.”

Terming himself old-fashioned, Hasan argued that he would have been happier if the space had been developed preserving the historical aspect, “like a maritime museum to walk you through the history of the port of Karachi.

“The way I see it, it does not serve the function related to its heritage nature,” he concluded.

Excerpt:

While Americans are taking sides in the ongoing battle about the future of American healthcare, one underrepresented group is especially vulnerable to the change – or lack of change – that may be afoot: the homeless community.

Credit: Raven Lintu

Most people in the U.S. think that everybody living in poverty is eligible for Medicaid, but this is not the case. Poor adults who are disabled or are parents are most often eligible, but for adults who don’t fall in these categories there may be no safety net available.

A non-disabled childless adult – even with ongoing, chronic health concerns – will likely not find relief and assistance through Medicaid. Mothers who have lost their children to foster care and adolescents who have outgrown the foster care system often also face a tight squeeze between the rock-and-a-hard-place that poverty and lack of healthcare represent. A nationwide study in 1996 found that only a quarter of America’s homeless population was enrolled in Medicaid.

The issues of homelessness and healthcare are so interconnected that it’s nearly impossible to consider the former without investigating the latter. Understanding the relationship between physical health, the cost of care and homelessness is in many ways a Rosetta Stone that clarifies the complex snarl of issues that surround homelessness. As soon as one takes the time to pull at the threads of how America’s healthcare system affects the poor, an understanding about homelessness comes into drastic, dramatic relief.

The relationship between healthcare and homelessness is cyclical, severe, relentless and pervasive. Many people find their exit to a life on the street as a direct result of a health crisis. That desperate path is marked by the too-often tread footfalls that pass from untreated illness into disability and unemployment – which, of course, is a leading cause of homelessness.

In addition, whether a person has insurance or not, the leading cause of bankruptcy in America is a crushing wave of medical expenses. Income and illness are completely intertwined in America’s for-profit healthcare model, and when poor people can’t pay, those poor people may lose their homes. And a life on the streets is a life of illness and injury that starts the cycle turning back on itself.

“Life on the streets is brutal and short,” says Bill Friskics-Warren. “Studies done in several U.S. cities have shown that the average lifespan of someone living on the streets is more than 30 years shorter than that of their housed counterparts.”

Friskics-Warren manages the United Neighborhood Health Services’ (UNHS) homeless programmes in Nashville, including the Downtown Clinic, the evening clinics in the basement of the Nashville Rescue Mission, and the UNHS’ mobile medical unit. In his experience, homeless people are not only vulnerable to health threats from the elements and violence, but also because of lack of treatment for chronic illnesses and conditions.

“Of the nearly 4,000 different people who were treated at the Downtown Clinic in 2010, 44 percent had high blood pressure, 16 percent were diabetic and 36 percent had documented mental health and/or addiction disorders,” says Friskics-Warren.

Among other patients, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, AIDS, tuberculosis and malnutrition were common along with the ubiquitous anxiety or depression that afflict most everyone who lives day-to-day with no place to call home.

UNHS has implemented a creative array of facilities and services to address the special needs of Nashville’s homeless population. The organisation took over operation of the Downtown Clinic in the fall of 2008, and their mobile medical unit is also allowing them to reach into isolated homeless communities, making healthcare available to people who may have no means of making the trip to the downtown facility or one of the satellite clinics.

“The unit enables us to meet people where they are, whether in a shelter or at a congregate meal site or encampment,” explains Friskics-Warren. “Having to venture across the Cumberland River to receive services at our Downtown Clinic can be a barrier to someone who might be camping in Shelby Bottoms.

“Sitting in the almost always crowded lobby of the Downtown Clinic can be difficult for someone with fragile mental health or sensory integration issues. Knocking on the door of our mobile unit when it’s parked outside the day shelter where you wash your clothes each week, though, may be less emotionally or logistically daunting for some people who are homeless.”

Many may hesitate taking a trip to the doctor out of anxiety or inconvenience, but most in the homeless community make an even more concentrated effort to avoid medical care. With little resources available and few alternatives at hand, most homeless people will only visit a doctor by passing through the emergency room doors.

As a result, a nasty cut becomes a limb-threatening infection and a seasonal cold results in pneumonia. The excessive costs involved in these preventable emergencies are ultimately another symptom of a healthcare philosophy that reacts to trauma and cures illness rather than maintaining health and promoting prevention. And once a person is discharged back out into the dangers on the street, it’s only a matter of time before they make a return trip.

Facing up to these hard facts, many municipalities and hospitals have begun to implement unique solutions that are designed to break the links between healthcare and homelessness by prescribing shelter as part of their cures.

Seattle, Washington’s Downtown Emergency Service Center has made a dramatic impact on the lives of chronic alcoholics on the streets of the city. The centre’s supportive housing project has seen the incarceration rate of its residents cut in half, while the hospitalisation rate has been reduced by a third.

The financial result for both the federal government and the City of Seattle can be sung to the tune of millions of dollars in savings. In Chicago, Illinois, the Chicago Housing for Health Partnership has also shown that homeless patients who received immediate housing and intensive case management were a third less likely to visit a jail cell or a hospital.

In Nashville, Room In The Inn provides a respite care programme which offers a safe place for homeless people to recover from illness or hospitalisation. Shelter, meals and medications are buttressed by needs assessments and advocacy efforts that attempt to connect patients with mainstream medical services. This web of security and support greatly increases the chances for successful recoveries, and severely lowers the costs incurred from emergency room care and incarceration.

The connections between homelessness, healthcare, state and federal budgets, and the health of the country’s social fabric are abundantly clear: homelessness is a healthcare issue, and when housing is a part of the prescription, everybody wins.

At a recent National Conference on Ending Homelessness, Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan stated, “…if we want to tackle healthcare reform – if we want to lower costs – we must tackle homelessness. It’s that simple.”

Regarding the connections between homelessness and healthcare, John Lozier couldn’t agree more. “It’s a profound and well-established relationship.” Lozier is the Executive Director of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council (NHCHC), the blanket organisation of which the United Neighborhood Health Services is a member.

Lozier and his group are one reason why a new understanding about the cost-effectiveness of ending homelessness is beginning to gain traction at the federal level. But it’s been a long road.

In 1986 the National Academy of Science published its groundbreaking report “Homelessness, Health, and Human Needs.” The report clarified a trinity of relationships between homelessness and healthcare that demonstrated the profound connections between the two issues: 1) Poor health leads to homelessness; 2) Homeless people receive poor healthcare; 3) Homelessness complicates treatment.

Almost exactly a year ago, a quarter of a century after the report came out, the Obama administration enacted Opening Doors: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, a programme that intends to end child and family homelessness in the U.S. within the next 10 years.

Monitoring and influencing policies that affect the homeless community is a central mission of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. “Since our beginning we’ve incorporated policy advocacy into the work we do and the work of the groups we support around the country.”

In fact, the NHCHC places much of the blame for the country’s homeless problem on public policy. As NHCHC explains on its website, “Contemporary homelessness is the product of conscious social and economic policy decisions…”

For Lozier, the slippery slope began with federal cuts to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that began in the late 1970s. “It started in the Carter administration and came to full force under Reagan,” he explains. “There was a decision to pull housing supports out from under homeless people.”

When it comes to advocating for new policies to help end homelessness, the NHCHC isn’t just fighting for what it perceives to be the needs of people living on the streets. For Lozier and the organisation, healthcare and shelter must be made available to all people regardless of their ability to pay. He supports his argument by citing the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted on December 10, 1948.

“Human rights are expressions of what is necessary for human beings to live in the first place,” he explains. “The first are food, clothing, shelter and medical care. We all have a mutual responsibility to see that we all have these rights.” While the U.S. has never endorsed the declaration, Lozier and the NHCHC are spearheading efforts to ensure that programmes like Open Doors continue to move in accordance with its recommendations.

* Published under an agreement with Street News Service.

By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 12 2011 (IPS)

Local women’s voices have begun to be heard over a community radio station now broadcasting in Complexo do Alemao, a clump of favelas or shantytowns on the north side of this Brazilian city that were ruled until recently by armed drug gangs.

Two of the women involved in Radio Mulher rehearsing. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

Before going on the air, the participants received a year of training about the workings of a radio station, including general courses for all as well as specific training in different areas depending on each woman’s role in the station, as determined by each individual’s strengths and talents.

The new community radio station operators are aiming to “exorcise” difficult experiences that plague many girls and women in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and other cities in Brazil. “What are our ghosts? Sexual abuse and rape,” Anatalia dos Santos, one of the first 28 women to receive the training, responds to IPS without hesitation.

The radio stations wants to tackle these and other thorny issues “that no one wants to talk about, like beatings from husbands, economic dependency on men, mothers who have to raise their children on their own,” she said.

“Women appear to be more resilient and combative, but they weren’t raised to get a job, to be successful, to make it on their own,” said dos Santos, who works as a nursing aide.

Because of this, she said, many women in Complexo do Alemao and other favelas are trapped by the reasoning that “better to live badly with him than worse off without him.”

Dos Santos belongs to Mulheres da Paz (Women of Peace), as do the rest of the women at the radio station, which broadcasts in the Complexo and surrounding areas on 98.7 FM.

Women of Peace, a Ministry of Justice programme, recruits community leaders to mediate in conflicts among local residents and try to create a peaceful haven in the favelas.

Anthropologist Solange Dacach, Women of Peace field coordinator in Rio de Janeiro and at the radio station, told IPS that one major focus of the initiative is working with young people in the favelas, because they are the chief victims of violence in Brazil.

“So many young people were being killed in drug-related turf wars,” she said.

That was the situation in the Complexo do Alemao, a complex of 13 favelas home to between 70,000 and 100,000 people, until November 2010, when the government of the state of Rio de Janeiro drove out the armed drug trafficking gangs that controlled the area, by means of a massive police and military incursion.

After regaining control over the favelas, the authorities established a permanent presence – which the government describes as a “social invasion” – with a focus on community policing and efforts to bring basic services like running water, sanitation and education to the poor neighbourhoods.

“No one wants to live surrounded by guns and seeing their kids left without any option but to pick up a gun,” dos Santos said.

Despite the ostentatious presence of an “army pacification force”, many residents of Complexo and other favelas in Rio de Janeiro where the authorities have regained control are afraid that the government will abandon them once again and the drug trafficking gangs will move back in and take reprisals.

The women involved in Radio Mulher realise that the cycle of violence cannot be broken overnight, and can only be combated by creating “a culture of peace.”

The community radio station is based on the concept of women as logical nurturers of that culture of peace, because of their mothering and caretaking roles, whether these are built-in or learned, said Dacach.

There are important precedents for this social leadership role taken on by women, said the anthropologist. “In Brazil there are a large number of movements of mothers: mothers of missing youngsters and children, of young people who were tortured by the (1964-1985) dictatorship,” which form part of the tradition of women involved in political and feminist struggles, community organising, soup kitchens and other initiatives.

Through the community radio station, the women in the Complexo want to make “peace” a tangible, day-to-day reality in the favelas.

The list of issues they plan to deal with include women’s health, sexually transmitted diseases, birth control and local environmental clean-up initiatives, said Marcia Rolemberg, head of educational communication in the state environment ministry.

With the support of other government and non-government institutions from the state of Rio de Janeiro, Radio Mulher aired its first programme, focused on the environment “as a whole,” on Jul. 2.

“Social questions are related to their environmental context, and because of this, the programme has a gender focus,” Rolemberg said, stressing that environmental issues are not limited to “plants or flowers.”

For these women, who come from poor, violent neighbourhoods, there is no shortage of issues to be addressed.

“Because of my life experience, I want to transmit to other women that they can’t be at the mercy of a pile of clothes,” Ivanir Toledo told IPS.

“They have to think of their family, yes, but also that their objective is to grow,” said Toledo, whose husband, head cook at a restaurant in a posh tourist area, is pleased with the changes he has seen in his wife.

“She’s more active and involved in her activities; she’s happier, and I am too,” Luiz Pereira de Sousa commented to IPS as he prepared a typical Brazilian dish with beef, rice and beans in the family’s home. “If we’re not close to our family, we as men don’t move forward either,” he added.

Toledo, who survived as a street child, homeless and on her own, wants the radio station to address an issue that still causes her pain: sexual violence.

Now happily married and the mother of a teenage daughter, Toledo, who is an active member of Women of Peace, has not forgotten that the streets are especially violent for girls.

“If you ask a man for a plate of food, you know the first thing that will pop into his mind. I started suffering violence as soon as I left home (at age nine). I’m talking about rape and abuse. And not just at the hands of one or two or three guys, but more. You’re there against your will, at that person’s mercy,” she said in a quiet voice.

Dos Santos, meanwhile, wants to discuss the question of work.

“In general, job training courses are especially focused on men, even though the highest levels of unemployment are among women, who in addition are often the heads of their families,” she said.

The radio station’s first programme dealt with an issue of special interest to the community: the launch of a campaign to prevent dengue fever and the reproduction of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads the disease. The radio station’s campaign has the support of the Health Ministry.

Structured as a friendly chat among neighbour women, the programme moved from issue to issue, ranging from advice on how to keep the neighbourhood free of garbage and standing water in which the mosquitoes breed to how to recognise the first symptoms of dengue fever.

Although the Women of Peace are the operators of the radio station, it will be open to all voices in the community, not only because that is its role as a community station, but also because it is their calling, they explained to IPS during one of the workshops in which they receive ongoing training.

Excerpt:

By Clarinha Glock
PORTO ALEGRE, Jul 5 2011 (IPS)

José Luiz Ferreira, 60, was born poor and is still poor, but was able to get an education. Known as Seu Luiz (Mr. Luiz) in Vila Nova Chocolatão, the Porto Alegre neighborhood where he lives, he earns a meager living by giving English classes. And he sees eagles where everyone else sees chickens.

José Luiz Ferreira at his former home in the old Vila Chocolatão. Credit: Clarinha Glock/IPS

His tale is a loose retelling of a story from the book “The Eagle and the Chicken” by Brazilian theologian and writer Leonardo Boff, one of the leading figures of Liberation Theology, a progressive current in the Latin American Catholic Church.

“Here (in the neighborhood), everyone has been an eagle for many years, but they treat them like chickens. And if nobody says anything to them, they will continue acting like chickens,” he said.

The eviction of the 732 residents of Vila Chocolatão, a favela or shantytown in the centre of Porto Alegre, became a landmark event in the city: for the first time ever, lawyers and geographers intervened in a forced relocation in order to ensure that potential problems were prevented or solved, based on the right to housing.

The result was the suspension of the resettlement until an agreement was signed with the federal public prosecutor’s office, which plans to construct a building for its own use on the site formerly occupied by Vila Chocolatão. The land in question is the property of the Federal Regional Court.

“Just because they live in decent housing doesn’t mean that they will have access to work, health care and education. A basic principle is that it is prohibited to set people back, and where they lived before they were able to earn a living,” Alexandre Gavronski, the regional prosecutor for Citizens’ Rights at the prosecutor’s office told Tierramérica.

Vila Nova Chocolatão – literally, the new Vila Chocolatão – is far from the city centre, and unlike its precursor, it is not surrounded by garbage. It has solidly built houses, sewers, electricity and running water. Employment is guaranteed for 60 people per shift at a waste separation facility donated by a private company; the inhabitants of the former favela made a living by collecting recyclable waste.

It would all be perfect if it didn’t violate the law, which not only requires that evictees be given a roof over their heads, but also the possibility of rebuilding their lives with work, health care, education and a minimum level of comfort.

The original Vila Chocolatão sat on the property of the Federal Regional Court for 25 years. It was overcrowded and living conditions were precarious and unhygienic; it was also struck by fire on several occasions. But two thirds of its inhabitants earned incomes equivalent to a minimum salary of around 342 dollars.

“The new neighborhood is infinitely better,” Humberto Goulart, director of the Porto Alegre Municipal Department of Housing, told Tierramérica a week before the relocation.

“The daycare centre (not completed at the time) is modern, there is enrollment space for all the children in the local schools, the health care facilities can respond to the new demand, and the waste separation facility is the most modern in Brazil,” he maintained. “Some people have complained just to make trouble.”

The criticisms, spearheaded by the Association of Brazilian Geographers and the University Legal Aid Service of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, had stressed the limited participation of the inhabitants in the relocation plan, a violation of the city bylaws.

They also pointed out that the number of new homes was not sufficient to house all of the families, obliging the city government to guarantee that it would pay rent in another area for a portion of the inhabitants.

Criticisms were also leveled at the recycling facility, which is not large enough to provide employment for all of the people who used to earn a living collecting and recycling waste, and at the inadequate census conducted of the neighborhood’s families, which led to the construction of houses only suitable for small households.

“It wasn’t what I expected,” said Teresinha Margarete do Rosário, who spoke with Tierramérica in May, a week after the relocation, at the waste separation facility. She had only managed to find enrollment space for one of her six children at the nearest school.

But Antônio Lázaro da Silva de Oliveira, a construction worker, was happy with the move. “Life is totally different here. My three daughters are in school. But there is one thing: after nine o’clock at night, nobody leaves the house. I’m going to talk with the people to do something about making the neighborhood safer,” he commented to Tierramérica.

It took Marta Suzana Pinheiro Siqueira and her husband an entire year to build their home in the old neighborhood, but they had no choice but to accept their eviction. A month after the move, they are still waiting for the authorities to remedy the lack of space in their new home for their four children, aged 11 to 17, by moving them to a third location.

Although the Vila Chocolatão eviction is not linked to the preparations for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, all resettlements and urban reforms in Brazil today are ultimately connected to this purpose.

“Everything is connected to the World Cup, because it’s a way of making resources available,” Raquel Rolnik, an architect, urban planner and United Nations special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, told Tierramérica.

Rolnik has received reports of forced evictions and relocations in different parts of the country in which people’s rights have been allegedly been trampled. One of these complaints was about Vila Chocolatão.

In December, Rolnik approached the Brazilian government to alert them to the allegations related to the construction of infrastructure for the World Cup. The lack of response led her to make the matter public through a press release.

In May, the head of the Special Secretariat for Human Rights of the Office of the President, Maria do Rosário Nunes, told Tierramérica in a telephone interview that the government had created a working group with members from the secretariat and a number of ministries to assess the resettlement plans of the local governments implicated in the allegations.

These plans are currently being evaluated, and federal authorities will continue to visit each place involved, said a source at the secretariat.

The mayor of Porto Alegre, José Fortunatti, claimed to be surprised by the complaints, and insisted that all rights were respected in the case of Vila Nova Chocolatão.

“If violations are repeated, there could be penalties,” Rolnik told Tierramérica.

At the time of publication, the Municipal Chamber of Río de Janeiro had just approved the creation of an inquiry commission to investigate reports of human rights violations related to construction works for the World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games.

These works are one of three major national projects that are currently affecting the residents of favelas in this country of 190 million people. The other two are the Growth Acceleration Programme and a plan known as Minha Casa, Minha Vida (My House, My Life), explained geographer Lucimar Siqueira.

The solutions offered provide shelter and assistance for evictees, she noted. But they do not guarantee that eagles will be able to fly.

* Clarinha Glock is an IPS contributor. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.

Excerpt:

James Smith is a 53-year-old Portland veteran who used to have a job he loved. After a car accident left him with traumatic brain and neck injuries in 2005, Smith lost his job, ran out of money and wound up on the streets.

When Smith tried to apply for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), he was denied three times because he was flagged as violent. He was loud, angry and high-strung – symptoms of traumatic brain injury, or TBI. For years, Smith sunk deeper into despair.

This week, with the help of Portland law firm Swanson, Thomas & Coon and Central City Concern’s BEST programme, Smith won his second hearing. The benefits he was awarded will give Smith a house, health care and a new life.

People suffering from TBI, the so-called invisible disease, can seem angry, forgetful, antisocial and disinterested. They may slur their speech, talk too loudly and walk crookedly. In other words, it’s easy to mistake people with TBI for being intoxicated, high, mentally ill, suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome or even averse to getting help.

It’s especially easy to make those mistakes when the person is homeless and already burdened with stigmas.

In October 2008, Portland’s Housing Bureau partnered with New York City-based Common Ground Institute to survey 646 homeless people on the streets of Portland. The resulting “Vulnerability Index” found that about half were medically vulnerable.

One of the medical conditions PHB was curious about was traumatic brain injury; however, because TBI can be so difficult to correctly diagnose, the field was left “To Be Determined.”

That same year, the city of Hamilton, Ontario awarded funding for a programme that offered counseling and intensive case management to 176 chronically homeless men. Forty-nine of those men agreed to participate in a more in-depth pilot programme that included advanced neuropsychological testing. A staggering 98 percent of men in the pilot programme met the criteria for TBI.

Today, we’re as clueless about TBI on the streets of Portland as we were three years ago. But TBI is causing a stir among scientists, social workers, city officials, the military and the NFL. What they’re discovering is surprising.

It can happen to anyone

Traumatic brain injury is indiscriminate, and it is the leading cause of death and disability in North America for people under 45, according to the Brain Trauma Foundation. There are an estimated 1.7 million deaths, hospitalisations, and ER visits related to TBI every year, according to the Centres for Disease Control.

Treatment is expensive and complex. X-rays, CT scans and MRIs help confirm TBI, and individualised physical therapy, speech language therapy, occupational therapy, psychological therapy and social support are usually needed to stabilise a TBI victim.

But “the equipment and support are not always available for homeless people even if a clinic suspects someone has TBI,” says Dr. Barb Wismer, board member of the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council.

“It’s trial and error,” says Dr. Phil Shapiro, a psychiatrist at the 12th Avenue Recovery Center who has many homeless patients. “We try different things depending on symptoms.” Shapiro is not convinced TBI can be separated from PTSD or fetal alcohol syndrome, and he adds, “Neuropsych testing is difficult to get these days, and a much deeper assessment can take hours. Many of the clients I have couldn’t sit for that.”

What other cities know

Cities that have done studies on how many homeless suffer from TBI report numbers that are scattered but all statistically significant: 98 percent (Hamilton, Ontario 2008-2010), 53 percent (Toronto, Ontario 2008), 67 percent (Boston, Mass. 2006-2007), 48 percent (Milwaukie, Wis. 2004), 24 percent (Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 2003) and at least 50 percent (National Healthcare for the Homeless Council). Of those, 70 percent occurred prior to becoming homeless in (Toronto), more than half occurred prior to age 20 (Boston), and the average age for the first TBI was 17 (Hamilton).

Compared to an estimated two percent of the general population that gets TBIs, “we’re seeing an enormous medical crisis,” says Dr. Theresa Petrenchik, who helped lead both the Hamilton and Fort Lauderdale studies.

Petrenchik’s research leads her to conclude that homeless people with TBI use more services, are homeless more often for longer periods of time, are more frequently incarcerated and have greater co-morbid risks than homeless people without TBI.

TBI among the homeless often overlaps, masquerades and partners with a laundry list of other ugly problems. Sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, substance use, family breakdown – often occurring in childhood – are just a few. When Petrenchik tallied the average number of “adverse experiences” in the case notes of the original 176 homeless men in Hamilton, she came up with 14 per person. “We find them in spades in this population,” says Petrenchik.

Just four adverse childhood experiences, according to the CDC, put someone at risk for a multitude of health and social problems. Having six or more adverse childhood experiences decreases your life expectancy by 20 years.

Dr. Stephen Hwang, leader of the Toronto study, is teaming up with Wismer and other researchers around the country to try to get funding for a national study on TBI and homelessness. San Francisco, CA, Baltimore, MD, Albuquerque, NM, Boston, MA, Cincinnati, OH, Houston, TX Orlando, FL, Los Angeles, CA, Hyannis, MA and Manchester, NH are the 10 cities they hope to survey.

“We think TBI is under-identified among the homeless,” says Wismer, “and we think a lot of health care workers don’t know about it.”

What a disability attorney knows

Cheryl Coon, board member of the Brain Injury Association of Oregon and the Social Security disability attorney who represented Smith, says she has many homeless clients with TBI. She describes a common pattern with her TBI clients: first, they stop being able to focus in the workplace. Then, they lose their jobs. Their physicians may not recognise TBI. And then many become homeless.

Chart notes follow Coon’s clients whenever they come in contact with the system and sometimes these files “come back to haunt folks,” says Coon. If a past doctor noted that a client was inebriated or high, even if that client was also diagnosed with TBI, that can be enough reason to deny them, she says. In fact, Coon thinks of TBI as a “Catch-22 for getting disability benefits” because the symptoms of TBI can be associated with so many other causes.

“The Social Security Administration is not eager to take these people on,” she says, “but disability benefits have become one of the few safety nets this country has.”

Winning Smith’s hearing was a personal victory for Coon, who says that around two-thirds of cases are initially denied in Oregon. “The number one piece of advice I give for any client is ‘you’ve got to hang in there and file for appeal,’ because the process is set up to weed out those who don’t have the perseverance to pursue it,” says Coon, who estimates that well over half of cases in Oregon are won when people keep appealing.

What a domestic violence shelter knows

Molli Mitchell, residential services director at Bradley Angle House says she “definitely” sees women coming to the shelter with TBI. In a study of 53 battered women, Dr. Helene Jackson found that nearly all reported suffering blows to the head while being battered; 40 percent reported loss of consciousness.

Mitchell and her staff are trained to recognise symptoms of TBI, but she says referring women to clinics doesn’t often work. Battered women who are candidates for TBI may have trust issues with counselors and doctors, lack of transportation to clinics, not to mention a host of competing problems. Mitchell says the link between PTSD and TBI is complex and often a fine line.

What the military knows

“TBI has become the signature injury of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” according to the Brain Trauma Foundation. About 320,000 American troops have suffered TBIs since 2001, with seven percent reporting both TBI and concurring PTSD or major depression, according to a 2008 report by nonprofit research group RAND Corporation. Blasts are the leading cause.

With its massive budget, the Department of Defense provides arguably the most cutting-edge research around TBI treatment. Eye-tracking goggles, neuroprotectants, biomarkers and hyperbaric oxygen chambers are just a few of the superhuman technologies being funded by the Pentagon to explore TBI, to varying success.

But despite funding such gadgets, the Department of Defence has been notoriously resistant towards paying for cognitive rehabilitation therapy for the tens of thousands of service members who have suffered TBIs. A 2010 NPR and ProPublica investigation found studies by the military’s health care programme, Tricare, “deeply flawed” and at odds with many medical groups. They cite the cost of cognitive rehabilitation to be as much as 50,000 dollars per soldier-a daunting figure even for the Pentagon’s budget.

How many end up homeless? The Department of Veterans Affairs conservatively estimates that 107,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, and that nearly one-fifth of the homeless population is veterans. PTSD, closely linked to TBI, is cited as a leading cause.

What the NFL knows

Just last year, former NFL (National Football League) doctor Ira Casson told Congress, “there is not enough … scientific evidence at present to determine whether or not repeat head impacts in professional football result in long-term brain damage.” The resulting outrage from players, doctors and sports reporters led to heightened investigations of TBI cases in pro football.

Mike Webster was one former NFL player held in the spotlight. Doctors estimated that the former Pittsburgh Steelers star’s brain had been through the equivalent of 25,000 car crashes in his 25 years of playing football. The depression and profound dementia that followed contributed to Webster becoming homeless and dying at age 50.

As TBI-affected ex-players come forward, the 33 billion dollar NFL is changing its position on TBI, albeit reluctantly. In cooperation with Boston University, the NFL opened a brain bank in 2010 to conduct post-mortem analyses of players’ brains. They donated one million dollars to help fund Boston University’s TBI research, started by a former wrestler. They announced harsher fines (tens of thousands of dollars) for players who tackle above the neck. They explored advanced helmet technology.

High school sports (and the PTAs behind them) seem to be making the true groundbreaking steps on TBI. Oregon enacted “Max’s Law” in 2009 – legislation that protects young athletes from damaging multiple concussions by requiring that all high school athletic coaches in the state receive concussion recognition training. It also prohibits any athlete showing concussion symptoms from playing until the next day.

The silent disease

All of the above candidates for TBI – homeless people, domestic violence victims, soldiers and pro football players – are also conditioned to be silent about TBI.

Thirty of 160 NFL players surveyed by The Associate Press in 2009 said they had hidden or played down the effects of a concussion. “By the time a guy reaches pro sports, he will not complain,” says Jane Arnett, wife of ex-player John Arnett in Lake Oswego. Together, the couple founded a nonprofit to help disabled ex-NFL players get health benefits.

A similar hush factor pervades the military. The 2010 NPR/ProPublica investigation found that, to remain with their unit, soldiers will often ignore symptoms of a blast and commanders might ignore such symptoms in order to keep soldiers on the field. Medics, forced to prioritise life-threatening injuries, may lack the time to recognise a concussion, the study adds.

Homeless people and domestic violence victims know silence better than anyone – lack of trust, resources and support prevent many from seeking help. Stigma certainly plays a role. And a 2007 study of homeless people in Denver found that homeless individuals are less than half as likely to be admitted to a hospital as non-homeless with similar conditions.

A 2008 report by The National Health Care for the Homeless Council said the following:

Many emergency departments have yet to implement screening and referral for (TBIs). As a result, many patients who are treated and released from ERs with instructions to follow up only if they experience dizziness, vomiting or difficulty waking may be experiencing cognitive changes that may never be evaluated. This is a widespread phenomenon and may explain the poor functioning of some persons who fall into homelessness without clear abuse or neglect histories.

What Portland knows

Dr. Paul Lewis is partnering with Street Roots to start a pilot project to track vital records and cause of death among homeless Portlanders. The deputy health officer for Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties says that as far as he knows, it’s never been done before, and he wouldn’t be surprised if accident injury was a major cause of death. “(Addressing TBI) is really an upstream problem,” says Lewis.

Diane Malbin of the Portland nonprofit FASCETS leads training sessions for parents and professionals on rethinking cognitive disabilities. Malbin believes that teaching people who work with the homeless to recognise the link between brain function and behaviour is crucial, and you don’t need a PhD to do it. “Addressing neurological issues will give us the toehold we need to tackle so many other social problems,” says Malbin.

… And doesn’t know

“Some cities don’t want to survey for TBI because then you might uncover a real service need,” says Petrenchik. “When we talk about the intersection of social services and health services, no one wants to hear about the need for long-term support … but we pay for it one way or the other.”

“Being able to recognise that there is a true disability as opposed to willful noncooperation is helpful,” says Hwang. “It’s worth investigating.”

“Who’s keeping track of TBIs?” says Coon. “Nobody.”

* Published under an agreement with Street News Service.

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jun 23 2011 (IPS)

“I want my own roof over my head, my own home. I don’t want to live in a curtained-off cubicle surrounded by masses of people,” says Elena Díaz, who does ironing for a living and lives in a temporary shelter in the centre of the Venezuelan capital.

Since torrential rains and flooding left 134,000 people homeless in November 2010, the longstanding deficit of affordable housing has become more visible in Venezuela, where people who lost their homes have taken refuge in all sorts of places, squatting in buildings, and holding street protests demanding solutions.

In response, the government has passed new laws and announced ambitious plans to tackle the problem.

Díaz, a 37-year-old mother of three, used to live in Alta Vista, a neighbourhood in west Caracas. Now she is in a temporary shelter in the car park of a shopping mall that the government took over for the purpose just days before its inauguration. Here families have food, water, electricity, and health care, and have been offered flats that are being built.

“But they tell me the flat assigned to me might be in La Guaira (on the Caribbean coast, 30 km to the north), and when a group of women here went to see the place, they showed them a vacant lot that doesn’t even belong to the government yet,” Díaz told IPS.

Thousands of families like hers were taken to improvised shelters in squares, schools (which have now been vacated), hotels, warehouses, military barracks, government ministries and other state institutions, including facilities belonging to the Venezuelan presidency.

For instance the Casa Amarilla, the Foreign Ministry headquarters opposite the central Plaza Bolívar in Caracas, sent filing cabinets off to a warehouse and improvised cubicles to shelter a group of families. Every morning the families, towels in hand, formed a queue outside a nearby hotel to take their showers.

In the last 10 years Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has launched a score of social programmes, referred to as “missions”, including food, health, education and employment plans. Now he has created a special plan to tackle the housing emergency, called the Great Housing Mission.

“In the next six years, the government, the people, members of the business community who wish to participate, together with allied countries, will build two million housing units,” said Chávez at the launch of the new mission. “This is my commitment, and I will personally vouch for it. The tragedy we have experienced due to the heavy rains in recent months compels and presses us to do this.”

The immediate goal is to build 150,000 housing units in 2011 and 200,000 in 2012, when Chávez will again be a candidate for reelection to the presidency for the term 2013-2019.

Chávez’s opponents are critical of the promise, pointing out that in the 11 years of his presidency the government built 325,000 housing units, and questioning how six times that number will be built in half the time, when production of cement and steel bars has fallen.

According to the state National Institute of Statistics, the population of Venezuela stands at 29 million people, over 90 percent of whom live in urban areas. They are distributed in 6.5 million households, of which 26 percent are still living in poverty in spite of the decline of the poverty rate by 23 percentage points since 1999.

The housing deficit is 1.8 million, and another 750,000 homes are in need of urgent repairs.

Latin America as a whole continues to experience a severe housing deficit, according to studies by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), in spite of high levels of urbanisation (76 percent) and of home ownership (73 percent) among the region’s 540 million people.

According to the IDB, 26 million housing units in the region are sub-standard; 128 million people live in shanty towns; and 28 million new housing units are urgently needed to reduce overcrowding and improve appalling living conditions.

To arrive at a better estimate of Venezuela’s housing problem, the Housing Mission is carrying out a census of families needing homes in one-third of the country’s 24 states, and 1.3 million applicants have already registered, according to the authorities.

“I applied, hoping to win this lottery. So did my mother and one of my sisters,” said 27-year-old Boris González, who drives a motorbike taxi and lives with his wife, two children, mother, two sisters and a nephew in a two-room shack in Las Mayas, a shanty town in southwest Caracas.

Provea, a human rights organisation that is often critical of government policies, applauded the Housing Mission “because it is based on recognition of the limitations of past efforts, and is deploying legal and financial resources to satisfy the fundamental human right to housing,” as its coordinator, Marino Alvarado, told IPS.

Opposition politicians, in contrast, regard the census and the handover of a few thousand housing units as an attempt by the Housing Mission to create the illusion that work is in progress to solve the problem, while raising hopes among the needy that they might be lucky enough to be given their own home.

Marco Negrón, a former dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the Central University, told IPS that “with the construction industry dismantled, only compulsive liars could promise to build in the next two years nearly 100,000 more housing units than have been built in the last two six-year terms.

“The new Housing Mission lacks the minimum amount of planning for housing and new cities; instead it consists of senseless promises and random expropriations of buildings, warehouses and car parks, and scale models (of proposed housing units), plenty of scale models,” Negroni said.

Chávez has asked his supporters to report vacant or under-utilised lots where the government could build housing. At the same time the authorities have taken over agribusiness company warehouses, old or unfinished buildings, parks and gardens, and car parks next to shops or residential buildings.

With special powers granted by Congress, the government has decreed laws authorising the urgent occupation of plots of land or buildings that it classifies as idle or under-utilised, as well as other laws to protect tenants, stipulating that they may not be evicted if they have nowhere else to live.

In the new climate in Caracas and other cities, groups of families in need of housing are squatting in buildings or houses that are under construction or have been abandoned, and are camping out in parking lots, shops, parks and even evangelical churches.

People in established neighbourhoods, meanwhile, have more and more frequently organised to block what they call “invasions,” and the police have had to take action to quell outbreaks of violence.

Díaz says she does not participate in the occupations. “They have warned us that if we carry out invasions or street protests, we will lose our chance of being allocated a house some day. But this country is too rich for us to spend our whole lives without ever sleeping under a roof of our own,” she said.

Excerpt:

You might say Nick Patton was born to fish. Literally born on a boat, Nick spent his earliest years living in orphanages along the Alaskan coastline. He ran away at the age of eight and quickly learned how to take care of himself and to rely on others – traveling in groups around the Pacific Northwest, picking apples and doing day labour.

Traumatic brain injuries often go undiagnosed, especially on the streets. Credit: Street Roots

He was only 11 years old when he started working on the boats and canneries of the Alaskan fishing industry. With a community of other fisherman, Nick followed the seasonal work, living on boats and in tents, even during the cold Anchorage winters. It all ended with the smack of a crowbar.

Nick was 32 and alone on the night he was attacked, and there were no witnesses. With no memory of the assault, he has few clues to the story except for the scar on his forehead where the crowbar cracked his skull.

“First it hurt the front of my brain, because that’s where they hit me. Then, the force caused my brain to hit the back of my skull, back here. Then, there was also some swelling, so that caused more damage – way down here in my brain stem.”

Nick woke up in an Anchorage hospital, but nothing was ever the same. His gregarious nature was now drowned out by voices and hallucinations, and reality was lost in the din.

“I couldn’t deal with society anymore. I didn’t know what was real or who to trust. I ended up cutting all ties to the world.” Alcohol and drugs became his only way of coping. “If I stayed high I could deal with it.”

For the first time in his life, Nick found himself unable to work and spent the next several years selling heroin, panhandling, and living on the streets.

Unfortunately, Nick’s story isn’t unique.

News about traumatic brain injury, or TBI, has increasingly come to light in recent months, from a spate of sports-related injuries particularly among football players, to the blast injuries of veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. Although, homelessness can be the ultimate tragic consequence of a brain injury, the medical world is only beginning to connect the dots between TBI and homelessness.

Head injury hits half of the homeless

According to the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council, at least half of all homeless individuals have experienced at least one head injury in their lifetime.

“Brain injury in the homeless community is a very common thing that we’re just starting to learn about,” says Dr. Barb Wismer, a practicing physician who serves on the board of the Council. Few formal studies have been done, but those few are sobering.

In one recent study of 904 homeless men and women in Toronto, Ontario, 53 percent reported some type of traumatic brain injury. Studies in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Boston, Massachusetts offer similar statistics of 48 and 67 percent.

The Toronto study found that for those who had experienced a head injury, 70 percent had suffered the injury prior to becoming homeless. And although there is no clear cause and effect, the results suggest that TBI could be at least one contributor to some individuals’ homelessness.

That shouldn’t be so surprising, as the long-term effects of a brain injury can be debilitating. Symptoms vary widely. Some are as dramatic as Nick’s hallucinations.

Others are much more subtle. Sometimes described as an “invisible disability,” brain injury often causes problems with memory, concentration and thinking, as well as the ability to regulate emotion and behaviour.

As a result, brain injury survivors often have a hard time doing the work they did before their injuries. Family and social relationships suffer, straining the most immediate safety net before homelessness.

The same symptoms can also create barriers for those individuals once they are on the streets. Navigating shelter systems, attending to basic health and hygiene, and accessing services can be overwhelming and difficult. Controlling anger can be a daily struggle.

And once on the streets, the risk of brain injury continues. Steve Hill suffered head injuries throughout his adolescence and adulthood, from sports injuries to snow boarding to fight clubs. He describes each one as taking him down another notch. Even small injuries caused intense reactions including vomiting and confusion. “You’re more edgy when you’re homeless,” Hill said. “And you’re closer to violence when you’re on the streets.”

One of TBI’s biggest dangers is that it often goes unrecognised. People with TBI often don’t connect their symptoms with previous head injuries, and many health care providers, mental health workers, and case managers don’t either.

Some brain injury survivors have a hard time remembering appointments, following instructions or taking medications. They may have a hard time organising their thoughts, finding the right words, or picking up on social cues. As a consequence, these clients might be labeled as disinterested, rude, or non-compliant.

Or they may be misdiagnosed. Symptoms of TBI can also look a lot like major mental illness, emotional trauma, or drug and alcohol abuse. And these conditions often co-exist and exacerbate one another. Distinguishing between them can be difficult.

This was the case for Nick Patton.

“They thought I had schizophrenia, even though the symptoms didn’t start till after the injury. And that was when I was 32” – much later than the typical onset of schizophrenia.

His doctors prescribed heavy antipsychotic medications to control his hallucinations, but that left him so sedated he couldn’t function. And it didn’t get to the root of the Nick’s problem: small seizures caused by the brain injury, left completely undiagnosed.

According to Dr. Wismer, Nick’s case is a prime example of why it’s important to identify TBI in an individual who is homeless. Treatment for TBI is often different from traditional mental illness, including differences in medications. Some psychiatric medications have little positive effect on an individual with TBI, yet can produce very harmful side effects.

A tank half full

George Dennison knows more about traumatic brain injury than most people I know. When I tell him I’m doing a story on TBI and homelessness, he says, “Oh good! Because it’s rampant out there!” He goes on to tell me about his own brain injury.

“See this water cooler? This is like brain reserve. If you’re way up here at the top, you’ve got a full tank. But I had the genetic predisposition for bipolar disorder, so that means I start off a little lower – about here. Then I go for years with it undiagnosed, so that brings me down some more. Then I smash my head into a car windshield. That one – that brings me down to here.” George’s hand is about halfway down the tank.

George wants to be clear. It’s not just the TBI. It has all taken a toll. “But TBI, mental illness, substance abuse, PTSD – they all go together like peanut butter and jelly.”

Because of its high prevalence, the National Healthcare for the Homeless Coalition recommends that homeless individuals be routinely screened for TBI during health appointments and in other service settings. For a comprehensive, standardised screen, the coalition recommends a web-based tool called the Brain Injury Screening Questionnaire. Although it only takes four minutes for the questionnaire to rule out brain injury, confirming a TBI takes about 20 minutes.

This isn’t a standard practice in Portland where busy clinics are filled with patients at risk for a whole host of health problems.

“The system isn’t set up to support a really thoughtful and complete history of complex individuals,” explains Rachel Solotaroff, Director of Old Town Clinic. Physicians have a limited amount of time and need to address each client’s most pressing health issues.

According to Solotaroff, clinicians end up using a “clinical reasoning process” to determine what type of screening might be most important for a particular client. TBI rarely makes it to the top of the list.

But given the high correlation between homelessness and brain injury, some advocates think it deserves more attention.

“We have to find a way to identify brain injury on the streets,” says Pat Murray, the Executive Director of Portland’s Brain Injury Resource Community (BISC). “When we understand that this is a physical injury, we start to look at people differently. We might need to work with them a little differently. And there may be ways to help.”

According to Murray, identifying brain injury could lead to more appropriate treatment, as well as better access to benefits and services.

Because the effects of brain injury can be disabling, some TBI survivors are eligible for Social Security disability benefits. For Nick Patton, it was a turning point in his recovery. But getting there wasn’t easy.

“Without help, I would’ve walked away. I had given up on it three times already. It would be hard for a normal person. But they make it so hard that a person who really, really needs SSI can’t do it unless they have an advocate.”

Luckily, Nick found one: Central City Concern’s BEST programme, a project that helps homeless men and women through the long and complicated disability claims process. The programme provides assistance with every step and pays for the expensive testing that’s often required. According to KascadareCauseya, BEST’s programme manager, more than half of BEST’s clients have had a TBI in their lifetime.

“I couldn’t think well enough, so they helped me fill out the paperwork,” Nick explains. “They knew what doctors to send me to and got my medical records sent from Alaska. I couldn’t remember the name of the hospital where I had my surgery, so they sent letters to every hospital in Anchorage.”

They also stuck with Nick through two denials and appeals. According to Mellani Calvin, Nick’s advocate at BEST, “the state’s disability reviewers were blaming his mental health disorder on his prior drug use. They saw him as just a drug addict who didn’t really need those (psychiatric) meds.” After four-and-a-half years, Nick finally won the claim.

The medical benefits started first, which gave Nick access to new doctors. And when the monthly cash benefits kicked in, he was able to afford the co-pay to see a new doctor – one who got to the root of Nick’s hallucinations.

Measurements of electrical activity in his brain confirmed that Nick was having small seizures – a direct result of his brain injury. Now, finally, an anti-seizure medication is helping to control the voices and hallucinations. The medication has been a critical piece of Nick’s recovery.

The importance of a good night sleep

Brain injury comes in all shapes and sizes and so does recovery. A lot depends on the location and extent of the damage. Mild TBIs may take just a short time to heal completely, while a severe injury may heal very slowly or cause permanent damage. In most cases, the underlying idea is the same – to rest the brain as much as possible while it takes time to heal.

If you suffer a brain injury, you’ll probably be advised to get plenty of sleep, limit sensory stimulation, and eliminate stressors. You’ll be encouraged to drink plenty of water, eat well, and avoid anything that might cause another injury – all relatively minor adjustments for most people. But for people without a home, they are virtually impossible.

“If you’re homeless you’re always living in this ultra-aware state. There’s no way to relax,” explains Brad Taylor, an outreach worker with JOIN. In the world of homelessness there is no place to rest or to get a full night’s sleep. And waking time is taxing.

Which is why Dr. Wismer sees housing as the first real step in recovery for many who are homeless – specifically, permanent supportive housing with nurses, case managers, and social workers. For some brain injury survivors, a new permanent supportive housing facility in Portland may come close.

The Housing Authority of Portland (HAP) is preparing to open the Bud Clark Commons – Portland’s new access centre that will also provide 130 units of permanent supportive housing.

For the first time in Portland, these units won’t be offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Instead, the Commons will offer housing to those they consider the most vulnerable. And that will include individuals who experience memory attention, organisation, social skills and anger management, all areas that can be directly affected by a brain injury.

Although the model is controversial, it could offer vital support for those recovering from brain injury. It also indicates a growing awareness of cognitive functioning and the important role it plays in a person’s ability to care for him- or her-self – especially amid the chaotic, deficient, and often dangerous circumstances of the streets.

According to Pat Murray, we still have a lot of work to do, and it needs to start with information. “Awareness has to happen first. And that awareness needs to start with those who serve homeless individuals.”

She offers Brain Injury Support Community as a resource to these providers. “We want to work together with people serving the homeless community – to help those who have already fallen through the cracks.”

And, she says, the time is right. “We have a real opportunity right now – brain injury is in the media and research is catching up with the reality. We’re just getting a lot smarter about brain injury.”

Nick Patton is living proof that with the right diagnosis, the right support, and a committed advocate, life can get better, even if it never goes back to normal.

Even 10 years on, Nick still feels the effects of his attack. Although the medications have helped dramatically, he still hears voices. But now he knows that they’re just voices and that they’re caused by the injury – he doesn’t have to listen to them. He can trust people again.

He also still struggles with some of the signature symptoms of brain injury – including memory and concentration. “It’s hard to keep my thoughts together. I can’t really read anymore – and if I do, I can’t remember it five minutes later.”

He says he’d like to go to school to be a case worker, to offer the same kind of support he’s gotten from others. But he knows it’s not in the cards. He says it would just be too much; to do the coursework needed to get the certificate.

But he’s learned to be happy again and to work around his symptoms. He sets his phone to remind him of appointments and tries not to promise that he’ll be somewhere on time. Social security covers his basic expenses. “I actually like paying my bills now. It makes me feel normal.”

But most importantly, Nick goes fishing. As often as he can, he goes out with a group of guys from AA to hit the best fishing spots in the city. It’s something he knows by heart – something the brain injury can’t take away from him.

* Published under an agreement with Street News Service

Living on the streets is not easy for anyone, but for gay teenagers it can be even worse. Many suffer rejection from their families – pushing them to homelessness – discrimination at school and even sexual assault on the streets. The Oasis Center, in Nashville, Tennessee, is gathering efforts to combat prejudice and provide a safe space for LGBTQ young people.

Eljen is a resident of an Oasis Center transitional living facility for 18 to 21-year-olds who currently have no permanent housing. Credit: Courtesy of Oasis Center

For weeks, a teenage girl living with her grandmother has been grappling over the decision to come out of the closet. The best-case scenario is that her grandmother will disapprove of her sexuality, but will continue to provide loving support. The worst-case scenario? The girl will end up homeless, living on the streets of Nashville.

This predicament isn’t uncommon among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer or questioning (LGBTQ) youth. Recently, the National Alliance to End Homelessness reported that while gay and transgendered youth make up approximately five to 10 percent of the entire youth population, more than 20 percent of homeless youth identify as such. In some locations, LGBTQ youth comprise as much as 40 percent of the homeless youth population.

Staggering statistics such as these lead many to believe that identifying among the LGBTQ demographic puts an alarming number of young people on the streets. According to Pam Sheffer, a full-time volunteer at Nashville’s Oasis Center, the LGBTQ students she works with fall in line with these statistics.

“Our stats on homosexual, bisexual and transgender youth sit right at about 30 percent,” she says. “Gay and transgender youth are in dire need of free programming that can counsel them through the coming out process.”

Unfortunately, until last summer, Nashville didn’t have many resources specifically designed to help LGBTQ teens. While the Oasis Center has more than 40 years’ experience serving troubled – and sometimes homeless or transitioning – youth, the organisation has only recently developed programmes for this demographic.

Sheffer, who was employed in the corporate insurance industry until last year, has helped create and support programmes that reach out to this demographic. While searching for a volunteer opportunity to help fulfill her passion of reaching out to gay young people, she stumbled upon the Oasis Center. Before long, she had postponed her career and signed up as a full-time volunteer.

“I’ve always had a passion for working with LGBT youth, and my day job just wasn’t cutting it after a while,” she explains. “Identifying as homosexual or transgender can be a very delicate process, and I felt compelled to help young people deal with that. I fell in love with what the Oasis Center has to offer and I wanted to be a part of that, too.”

Programming that works

Sheffer intentionally asks LGBT youth what they need and what type of programmes they would like to attend. So far, her strategy is working: about four kids showed up to the first event hosted by the Oasis Center; by the third event, more than 20 young people were in attendance.

“We’ve now organised consistent programming with set days and times,” Sheffer says. “That gives young people a therapeutic opportunity to speak their truth to an audience that can relate and assist.”

The programme – now called ‘Just Us’ by the teens who participate in it – also offers educational opportunities about LGBT history, including gay and transgender people who have made a significant difference in the world. Sheffer also discusses the laws that affect gay people, and how to cope with the fact that finding a job – or even housing – can be more difficult for homosexuals in some areas of the country.

“It’s not about making them feel down or overwhelmed; it’s about giving them hope that they can be successful citizens in a community,” she says.

Sheffer also organises special events like “The Closet: It’s not for clothes anymore”, which focused on the emotional intricacies of identifying oneself as gay or transgender. Last fall, she hosted a five-hour summit, where gay youth completed an anonymous survey about their wants and desires. As a result, she and Oasis Center staff are quickly learning what kind of programmes helps this demographic – and what drives them away.

“Through those surveys, we learned that the kids actually don’t want to label themselves,” Sheffer says. “They feel that labeling just opens them up to more discrimination. Knowing that kind of thing helps us create more effective programming.”

In fact, the Oasis Center has been able to identify the top four needs of gay adolescents. Most of all, participants in the programme are seeking gay or transgender adult mentors who can help them transition through the coming out process. Additionally, they desire an accepting and loving family, social justice opportunities and a safe school environment.

Other harsh realities

While the streets aren’t kind to anyone, the challenges experienced by homeless youth are especially harsh for those who identify as gay or transgender. For example, a study by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Department of Sociology reports that 33 percent of straight homeless youth have been sexually assaulted, compared to 58 percent of homeless gay and transgender youth. Forty-four percent of LGBT youth have been sexually abused by their adult caretakers, while only 22 percent of straight youth have similar encounters.

While the climate on the streets is dangerous for homosexuals, LGBT adolescents who are not accepted at home face a host of difficult challenges, as well. A study by Dr. Caitlin Ryan and her team from the Family Acceptance Project reveals the social ills that can plague LGBT youth who aren’t well-received by their family.

Young people who experience rejection are 8.4 times more likely to attempt suicide, 5.9 times more likely to experience depression, 3.4 times more likely to use illicit drugs, and 3.4 times more likely to have unprotected sex.

“This study clearly shows the tremendous harm of family rejection, even if parents think they are well-intentioned, following deeply held beliefs or even protecting their children,” stated Dr. Sten Vermund, a pediatrician and Amos Christie Chair of Global Health at Vanderbilt University. “In today’s often hostile climate for LGBT youth, it is especially important to note that both mental health issues like depression and suicide and HIV risk behaviours were greatly increased by rejection.”

Armed with these statistics, the Oasis Center staff is working to keep kids off the streets.

“We’re trying to become case workers in some ways, so we can assess where these kids are at home, at school, and in church, and then identify where we can help them circumvent their problems,” Sheffer says. “If we identify that there is abuse going on, then we can step in. If someone just needs a peer group, we can offer that. If it’s counseling that they seek, we’ve got that covered. In the end, we hope to prevent homelessness.”

Searching for funding

Although Ms. Sheffer and Oasis Center staff have served more than 40 LGBTQ youth in the past year, the centre hasn’t received any formal funding to start an official programme. For the past 12 months, they have worked to demonstrate the need for programming that serves the gay and transgender youth population in Nashville-and the Oasis Center’s ability to sustain it.

“There are national organisations that fund gay youth programs, but you have to display a track record to get that off the ground,” Sheffer explains. “(We’ve done) a lot of youth engagement and preventative work to funnel money into the program. The Oasis Center has been doing this for 40 years, and they know how to tap into these resources. If we can get this programme started, we believe we can sustain it.”

* Published under an agreement with Street News Service.

Given that the world’s 40 biggest cities account for eight percent of the global population and 12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, local governments play an increasingly important role in confronting climate change.

São Paulo is one of the world's most populous cities. Credit: Adam Jones - Creative Commons

This was one of the conclusions reached at the fourth C40 Cities Mayors Summit, organised by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) in São Paulo, Brazil May 31 to Jun. 3.

The summit culminated in the signing of an agreement to establish a common standard for measuring greenhouse gas emissions and another with the World Bank to facilitate financing for environmental projects in urban areas.

The C40 member cities are Addis Ababa, Athens, Bangkok, Beijing, Berlin, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Caracas, Chicago, Dhaka, Hanoi, Houston, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Karachi, Lagos, Lima, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Melbourne, Mexico City, Moscow, Mumbai, New Delhi, New York, Paris, Philadelphia, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, São Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto and Warsaw.

“The leaders of C40 Cities – the world’s megacities – hold the future in their hands,” said New York City mayor and C40 chair Michael Bloomberg.

Every two years, the group’s members meet to present and evaluate the results of their initiatives. The first summit was held in London in 2005, the second in New York in 2007, and the third in Seoul in 2009.

At this year’s summit in São Paulo, the C40 and ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, an association of over 1,200 local governments, signed an agreement to establish a global standard for accounting and reporting community-scale greenhouse gas emissions.

“Establishing a single global standard for reporting greenhouse gas emissions will empower local governments to accelerate their actions and access funding for mitigation and adaptation projects,” said Bloomberg.

In addition, Bloomberg and World Bank Group president Robert Zoellick signed a “groundbreaking” agreement aimed at helping cities accelerate current actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and become more resilient to climate change. The World Bank Group has allocated 15 billion dollars to C40 cities, and another five billion has been granted in long-term loans at an interest of one percent annually for climate-related initiatives. Combined with other sources of financing, a total of 50 billion dollars would be made available, of which 30 percent is earmarked for private sector initiatives.

The conditions for accessing these funds vary. Priority is placed on infrastructure development and poverty reduction. To provide more information on the different mechanisms and sources of financing, a platform has been created to offer guidance on financial options available for climate action in developing countries, at http://www.climatefinanceoptions.org.

Speaking to the delegations from 47 cities gathered in São Paulo, Zoellick stressed that the World Bank Group wants to facilitate changes in the right direction, and that the establishment of specific targets and a common standard to measure their achievement will enable it to provide more effective support.

While this support “is fundamental, it is important to study ways for local governments to directly access these lines of credit. If we depend on national governments, it could complicate matters,” Mauricio Macri, the mayor of Buenos Aires, told Tierramérica.

One of the featured speakers at the summit was Bill Clinton, former president of the United States (1993-2001) and founder of the Clinton Climate Initiative, which has worked in partnership with C40 since 2006.

Clinton’s address focused on ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, specifically highlighting the need to curb landfill emissions of methane gas.

When organic wastes in landfills decompose they produce methane, which is one of the greenhouse gases contributing to global warming, but can also be harnessed to generate energy. This represents another potential source of revenue, in addition to the recycling of plastic, glass and wood from landfills.

“The financing has not been available for these things because they have been looked at as eyesores, not goldmines,” said Clinton. “World Bank financing may give us the chance to do something historic.”

Curbing pollution and adapting to the effects of climate change require major investments, particularly considering the need for new technology in large construction projects.

But big cities have also found simple measures that offer significant results. In the Australian city of Melbourne, for example, the local government offers free transportation until seven in the morning, to reduce the use of private vehicles and take advantage of the public transport vehicles that usually sit idle during these hours.

Another initiative presented at the summit is a programme adopted in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, in which drivers leave their cars at home one day a week. Participants in the programme place a sticker on their vehicle indicating the day they have agreed not to drive, and sensors monitor whether or not they have complied with their commitment.

Those who comply receive discounts of five percent on their vehicle tax fees and 8.7 percent on insurance premiums, as well as discounts on fuel and other services. If the radar sensors detect a vehicle being driven on the prohibited day three times, these benefits are revoked.

Initiatives highlighted by the summit’s hosts included dedicated lanes for buses, taxis, and bicycles; the recovery of streams and rivers; the creation of strips of parkland between buildings and along highways and river banks; the expansion of green areas to increase rainwater absorption and reduce temperatures; and the use of renewable fuels.

Planting trees in accordance with the number of inhabitants of a city is another fairly widespread measure. For instance, Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, is currently investing in urban forests, the recovery of gallery forests and the renovation of housing, concentrating homes in complexes on smaller areas of land to free up space for parks and urban infrastructure.

Amsterdam has its own fund for climate projects. “We have achieved many things, but when we look at the big picture, we see that there is a lot left to do,” Lodewijk Asscher, the mayor of Amsterdam, told Tierramérica.

The C40 summits provide a forum for the exchange of experiences, both successes and failures, and the discussion of shared and individual goals. Seoul hopes to transform 10,000 buildings into green buildings by 2030, Austin has a zero waste plan for 2040, London aims to have 100,000 electric vehicles on the streets by 2020, and Tokyo is introducing higher energy efficiency standards for large urban developments.

*Envolverde correspondent. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.

By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 2 2011 (IPS)

Four decades after Washington declared its “war on drugs” and began to spread the doctrine south of the U.S. border, the government of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro decided to shift away from that approach towards a strategy focused on community policing.

Chapeu Mangueira, one of the 16 favelas where UPPs have been set up. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

The process began in 2009 with the installation of “Police Pacification Units” (UPPs) in the favelas. The new model of public security and crime prevention aims to forge ties of trust between the local population and the police.

The UPPs are based in police stations built in favelas once controlled by drug traffickers or paramilitary militias, to establish and maintain a sustained police and state presence.

In the past, the police only staged violent raids in the favelas, which claimed a large number of civilian victims, produced few results in terms of law enforcement, and did nothing to change the change the balance of power between state authorities and armed drug gangs.

Besides the new focus on relations between the police and the local communities, the government is making an effort to bring running water, sanitation, education and other services to the favelas.

The idea is simple, says the secretary of security of the Rio de Janeiro state government, José Mariano Beltrame, on the UPP web site: “To reestablish control over territories lost to drug traffickers. In turf wars with rival factions, these groups began an arms race that escalated in recent decades, a war in which the rifle reigns absolute.”

Chapeu Mangueira, home to 200,000 people, is one of the 16 favelas where UPPs have been installed. Already graced with one of the best hilltop views of the sea, the neighbourhood is now also the site of public infrastructure works that are improving the lives of local residents.

Most people in Chapeu Mangueira still do not dare talk about these issues in public. They are afraid that the police will pull out and leave them exposed once again to reprisals from drug gangs.

But Josivaldo da Silva, one of the few willing to talk to IPS, said “Everything has changed for the better. Job training courses have started to be held, health agents have come – we’re getting everything here now.”

Statistics from the Rio de Janeiro Institute on Public Security show that the number of homicides in this state went down 18.4 percent between July 2009 and July 2010.

Margio Sergio Duarte, the head of the military police in the state, attributes the success to the shift from the idea of “the war on drugs” to the concept of “pacification of the city.”

“That’s the approach now,” he said in an interview with IPS. “In the past we had a war against drugs, and we lost, and we were going to keep losing because our strategy was wrong.”

Duarte stressed, however, that the new focus has not meant the abandoning of drug prevention and interdiction efforts, or of the fight against drug addiction. He said it is a process of “pacification,” a “new term” that he defined as the recovery of areas previously in the hands of drug gangs and the restoration of the lost civil and social rights of the local populations.

“Along with that, we are winning the war against drugs, because the criminals no longer stroll around freely with their guns in full view, and drug sales have been reduced in these areas,” he added.

Nevertheless, some criticise the new public security policy, because the result is not defeated enemies held up as trophies.

“But wasn’t that precisely what we wanted?” sociologist Ignacio Cano asks in response to those who complain that former drug dealers now participate in social programmes in their communities.

Cano, a long-time outspoken critic of the abuses committed during police raids in the favelas, applauds the results achieved by the new strategy.

Although he says the UPPs have not had much of an impact on drug dealing, Cano, an expert at the Rio de Janeiro State University Laboratory for the Analysis of Violence, said emphatically that they have managed “to interrupt the cycle of violence and the armed control that these groups exercised over the local population” in the favelas.

“Everything indicates that the trafficking continues, but with a much lower profile, and no longer heavily armed – just as it exists anywhere in the world,” he told IPS.

Other UPPs are located in or adjacent to upscale neighbourhoods or tourist areas in the city.

The next ones are to be installed in favelas near the world-famous Maracaná football stadium and other sports installations, as part of the preparations for the 2014 World Cup football championship and the 2016 Olympic Games, to be hosted by Rio de Janeiro.

The goal is to have UPPs in 40 communities by 2014: a small number compared to the size of the city and the number of favelas.

According to the city government, there are 750 favelas home to one million people in the city proper, which has a population of 6.3 million. (Greater Rio is home to 11 million people and the state has a total population of 15 million in this country of 191 million people.)

Cano acknowledges that the strategy has been “selective,” but says that regardless of this, “it is showing people and the police themselves that there is another way to interact and operate, which is much more successful than the traditional approach.

“Let’s hope this new anti-drug strategy will expand to the rest of the city and state, replacing the old model of armed raids and firefights,” he added.

He says society should demand that the government carry out a complementary policy in areas where there are no UPPs, to combat, for example, the high number of deaths at the hands of police and to improve police salaries.

The city’s police force has a reputation as one of the world’s most violent. According to a report by rights watchdog Amnesty International, the police in Rio de Janeiro killed 855 people last year.

Cano also said it will be necessary to convince the residents of areas where UPPs have been installed that the process is irreversible and that they won’t be abandoned, as in earlier shifts in strategy.

“The people in these communities are still scared that this will be temporary and that after the Olympic Games, when the funding runs out, everything will go back to how it was before,” he said.

“We need time for the change in relations between the local communities and police and for the credibility of the project to take root,” he said.

The police also have their doubts as to the permanence of the shift in focus. A study by the Centre for Studies on Public Security and Citizenship (CESC) at the Candido Mendes University reported that 60 percent of the UPP police officers are not satisfied with their jobs and many of them also doubt that the project will continue.

Excerpt:

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 26 2011 (IPS)

Despite the risks involved, a man who is under the witness protection programme in Brazil and his wife decided to tell their story to IPS, to denounce flaws in a system that, in their case, has added neglect and isolation to the total anonymity in which they must live.

A street in a "favela" or slum in the Complexo do Alemão. The militias are no longer active here, but do operate in nearby neighbourhoods. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

After putting up with extortion and abuses from the group for so long, MAA knew too much.

When he was released from hospital, he had to hide until he decided to give a statement to prosecutors and enter the federal witness and victims’ protection programme, PROVITA. Today he is 48 years old.

“I knew there was a plan to kill me,” MAA told IPS in the apartment where he is temporarily living, in southeast Brazil. “After the murder attempt, I took shelter on my brothers’ farm. I had no other alternative, and I didn’t have any money, and my family was going to be targeted.”

The “justice league” and other militias are active in many neighbourhoods in Rio, especially in the north and the west. The groups emerged in recent years under the pretext of fighting drug trafficking but actually became new players in the drug trade, while imposing their own rules and demanding that local residents and shopkeepers make “protection” payments and pay for illegally provided services like security, transportation, electricity, cooking gas and cable TV.

When MAA (his initials) entered PROVITA, his life and the lives of his wife and their two teenage children underwent a radical change.

On Dec. 21, 2007 he signed an agreement pledging to live up to the programme’s rules. “We quickly said good-bye to our family and left,” said the witness, who has not seen his parents or siblings again.

They left behind the city where they had always lived, along with their plans and dreams for the future.

It wasn’t just that they had to move away. Uprooting themselves at a moment’s notice, without leaving a trace, whenever they received a warning from PROVITA became routine. They have so far moved to four different cities, to avoid being tracked down.

MAA, a lawyer and retired member of the military police, and his wife, a business administrator, had a comfortable middle-class lifestyle in which they could afford health insurance and a private school education for their children.

But after they entered PROVITA, they were no longer able to exercise their professions, and for a living they depend on the delivery of MAA’s pension payments by the non-governmental organisation that administers the witness protection programme.

Although PROVITA is a federal government programme, it is run through agreements with the states and non-governmental organisations, which are in charge of providing assistance to the protected witnesses.

“I was really scared of being tortured, and of dying. I’m not anymore,” said MAA’s 42-year-old wife MR. “I’m only afraid for the future of my children. We can’t tell our story, no one knows about us. We have to lie all the time, and even if we make friends, we can’t tell the truth.”

They have been deprived of many things: they can’t talk about their past or reveal their real identity to anyone. They can’t use the computer or the Internet, have a bank account, drive a car, or even talk on the phone. And they always have to lie about where they are from.

But more painful than these rigid rules is the scornful treatment they receive from the programme, they said.

Because of the bullet wounds that MAA received, he required intestinal reconstruction surgery. But he was not given the operation until six months later, when it was too late. By the time he underwent surgery, he was once again on the verge of death, and he lost his large intestine, he said.

“I’m still waiting for compensation for my health problems,” he added.

The delivery of the funds they need to survive is also frequently delayed by red tape, they said. Nor are they able to communicate with the heads of the programme, and they are not given legal, social or psychological assistance, they complained.

For speaking out and violating the confidentiality clause of their agreement with PROVITA, MAA and MR know they can be kicked out of the programme and left on their own. But the need to get their story out was even stronger than their fear of being left without protection.

They are one of the nearly 80 families from Rio de Janeiro who are under protection from the state. Nationwide, there are 1,200 witnesses who are receiving protection.

According to the heads of PROVITA, the programme has been 100 percent effective in the 15 years since it was founded: none of the 4,500 people under its care have been killed.

MAA and his family are not typical members of the programme, who tend to be poor.

When the order to move arrives, they often spend months living out of hotel rooms, without protection, waiting to be assigned rental housing.

The last time, the family was given one night’s warning to pack up and move to another city in the northeast, carrying just three days worth of clothing, and had to spend nearly two months in a hotel until MR decided to find an apartment on her own for them to rent.

The belongings that they left behind on that occasion took several months to arrive, and had been ransacked along the way. They were able to salvage very few things and once again had to purchase furniture and household items. They have not received reparations for this either.

And MAA and his wife say they suffer discrimination and intimidation from the PROVITA staff themselves, who treat them “like criminals.”

“We already filed complaints in 2009, and suffered intimidation and threats of being removed from the programme. We’re treated as if we were criminals. It’s psychological torture. We feel like we’re in exile, without the rights of citizens in our own country.”

The health coverage, they say, is limited to prescriptions of high doses of antidepressants and other prescription drugs, although psychological assistance would appear to be indispensable.

Their children have had a hard time adapting to new schools every time they move, which generally occurs in the middle of the school year. They have had to repeat grades because of missing months of schooling.

The uncertainty of not knowing where and when they will be moving has caused problems for their children, MAA says. Not only do they have learning disabilities and problems socialising, but they have symptoms of depression and suicidal tendencies, he said.

“We are really worried about the future of our kids. I can’t work, even as a self-employed professional, which is really frustrating. The only thing I can do is stay at home,” said MR.

In the three bedroom apartment where they live, the brightly coloured walls with simple decorations stand in for a real home.

After five moves in four different cities, the couple do not want to leave the peaceful southeastern town of 50,000 people where they are now living.

MR hasn’t had news of her family for years either, and she cries every day. “My body aches, I miss them so much,” she said.

“We were naive to believe in the programme,” she added. “They stole our futures from us and didn’t help us reinsert ourselves in society.”

Nationwide, witnesses are to be covered by PROVITA for two years. But the decentralised administration of the programme means each state adopts its own rules. The policy is for witnesses or victims to remain covered until they no longer face any threat.

“We are now in a process of getting back to some sort of life, but we have been outside the labour market and we need support to help us get a job,” MR said.

She hopes her children will complete secondary school and that she and her husband can build a life “from scratch,” at a calmer pace and without risks.

Returning to Rio is impossible, though.

When MAA offered to testify as a witness, in December 2007, the authorities arrested the heads of the “justice league”. But because they have high-up contacts, they should soon be able to make it out of prison thanks to sentence reduction or commutation mechanisms.

The militias are now active in more than 300 neighbourhoods in Rio de Janeiro, state legislator Marcelo Freixo of the Socialism and Freedom Party told IPS. In 2008 he chaired a parliamentary inquiry into the paramilitary groups.

Fewer than 10 percent of homicides are solved in Rio, according to Freixo. “Witnesses are often the only proof in a criminal investigation.”

“I’m not going to give up, because it is the state’s duty to keep us safe,” said MAA. “I just want to be treated as a citizen. Safety and protection aren’t a business deal, but a right. Today we are surviving and we are protecting ourselves,” he said.

Excerpt:

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 13 2011 (IPS)

Despite “considerable progress” made in reducing poverty, “stark inequalities” remain in Brazil, as well as high levels of police and gang violence in poor urban neighbourhoods, Amnesty International warns in its annual human rights report, released as it reaches its 50th anniversary.

Security forces in an operation carried out in a favela. Credit: Rel-UITA

In the chapter on Brazil, the London-based global rights watchdog says the country’s “favelas” or shanty towns continue to face “a range of human rights abuses, including forced eviction and lack of access to basic services.”

Although murder rates have come down in some cities, “high levels of police and gang violence in shanty towns” led to further inequalities.

The report notes that when President Dilma Rousseff took office in January, she said public security, health and the eradication of poverty would be top priorities for her government.

Amnesty refers to the success in bringing down crime rates achieved by “Police Pacification Units” installed in favelas in Rio de Janeiro. But it says that in areas not covered by that public security policy, “police violence, including killings, remained widespread.”

According to official statistics, 855 people were killed by police in situations described as “acts of resistance” in 2010, the report adds.

The rights group mentions the month of November 2010, when more than 150 vehicles were set on fire and police posts were attacked in Rio de Janeiro. In response, the authorities launched a major operation, deploying more than 2,600 police and armed forces troops in the Complexo do Alemão, a group of favelas on the north side of Rio de Janeiro, aimed at dismantling the city’s largest drug gang.

Amnesty also refers to the violence caused by militias, or armed paramilitary-style groups, and death squads largely made up of off-duty law enforcement officers.

The report points out that the recommendations set forth in 2008 by an inquiry into the militias by the Rio de Janeiro state legislature had not yet been implemented.

“It’s true that our recommendations have not been followed,” state lawmaker Marcelo Freixo of the Socialism and Freedom Party, who chaired the inquiry committee, told IPS.

“We made 58 recommendations in the inquiry committee’s final report, which are essential to combating the militias,” he said. “Almost none of the proposals were implemented by the federal government, or by the state and municipal governments.”

It is not funds that are lacking, but “political will,” he said. “It’s due to cowardice, because these should be measures taken by the state.”

Although arrests of people suspected of belonging to such militias have increased, the number of areas in Rio under the influence of paramilitary militias and death squads has grown even more.

Freixo said that in 2008, when the committee carried out its inquiry, the groups were active in 170 areas in the state, compared to more than 300 areas today.

“This number will go up, because the authorities have done nothing,” the legislator said. “An increase in arrests isn’t enough to fight the militias.”

Amnesty also reports that in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, there was a spate of “multiple homicides in which the perpetrators were suspected of having links to police death squads and criminal gangs.”

According to official figures, 240 people were killed in 68 incidents in greater São Paulo between January and late September, the rights group says.

Meanwhile, prisons remain severely overcrowded, inmates are held in conditions “amounting to cruel, degrading or inhuman treatment” and torture is “widespread,” the report says.

It adds that the authorities have effectively lost control of many facilities, giving rise to a series of prison riots and murders.

In the northeastern state of Maranhão, for example, rival factions killed 18 prisoners, including four who were decapitated, in two prisons in October 2010. The riots broke out when prisoners began protesting the overcrowding, poor quality of food and lack of access to water.

The report also mentions violations of the right to housing, citing threats of forced eviction of poor communities because of plans for infrastructure works for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics Games, to be hosted by Rio.

When Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty visited Brazil in April, he met with families who had lost their homes in police operations carried out without prior warning. Residents were made to sign documents relinquishing their homes in exchange for apartments in distant housing projects.

In addition, at least 750 families live in areas of Rio where freeways are to go in.

“Brazil is a signatory of international human rights treaties and conventions that commit it to guarantee adequate housing,” Shetty said in Rio on Apr. 27. “They need to follow through on their promise. The examples we have heard show that human rights are still not being respected.”

Excerpt: