Social Inclusion: Demolishing Invisible Walls

In Rio de Janeiro, an initiative designed to promote the social inclusion of young people at risk in shantytowns ruled by drug gangs, teaches youths about their rights and helps them overcome boundaries that separate them from each other and from the rest of the city. It is called Protejo.

The project is one of the 24 actions contained in Brazil’s National Program of Public security and Citizenship, (Pronasci) that belongs to the Ministry of Justice, and will be implemented in a small community that sprung up around a landfill in Cabo Frio, Northern Rio de Janeiro state. Protejo has already reached a thousand youths in São Gonçalo, an area ranked thirtieth in Brazil for crime and 500 youths at the Maré shantytown, both of the latter in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area.

But who does Protejo protect? And from whom? “What Protejo does is social inclusion,” said Moisés de Azevedo Marins, a young man from the Maré shantytown in Rio de Janeiro, who took part in the project implemented by the civil society organization Viva Comunidade, last year. “It made us rethink the world we belong to, is it controlled by the drug trade, or is it a world with public institutions that protect our rights and tells us clearly what our duties are?” said Marins.
Marins is currently employed as an office assistant. But it was different only a little while ago. He is one of the 500 youths at risk who joined when Protejo arrived in his community, taking the course from September 2009 to April 2010. “It was the first time that we heard the side of the state, until then, all we knew was the point of view of the drug gangs,” said Marins.
 
Innovative even in its goals, Protejo focuses on educating youths in the tenets of citizenship, while also providing elements to help them catch up in school and enter the job market. “Our goal is not merely to get them into the job market, what we want is to restore the connections youths have with the city, making them active citizens, that means also completing their formal education and getting jobs, said Alex Goes, Coodenator of Pedagogy at Viva Comunidade.
Protejo targets specifically areas with high levels of insecurity and crime, and is open to youths age 15 to 24, who are also the age group devastated by armed violence in Brazil.

Before approving a new edition of the project, Brazil’s Ministry of Justice conducts an evaluation of the proposed geographical area in a bid to pin point those youths most isolated from the state. “In the territory we find youths who have not finished grade school, high school, or juvenile offenders and even former convicts, since so many are adults,” said Goes.

Protejo for all

The project is open to all, breaking down walls from its central concept. “We believe that every young resident of a low-income community is vulnerable. Which leads us to our second concept that is integration,” said Alex goes.

“We prioritize those who are lagging behind in school, those who have been involved with the justice system, but we also accept students and we support those who are entering university. This allows us to foster interaction among the different social classes inside the territory, which is another factor to set off confrontations and generate hostilities,” said Carlos Costa, general coordinator of Youth and conflict mediator at Viva Comunidade.
Given a stipend of 100 Reals (60 US dollars) all beneficiaries have to take 800 hours in classes on citizenship, maths, Portuguese and job training. They also take part in cultural and sporting activities.

“It is not all theory. The NGO carrying out the Protejo has a margin of freedom in how to design the 800 hours. At Viva Comunidade, we have decided to include classes on human rights, multimedia and documentary film in the Protejo silabus,” said Alex Goes.
As a result the cost of the program varies. In the two projects coordinated and executed by Viva Comunidade, each participant in São Gonçalo cost the project 80 Reals, and 115 Reals at the Maré. The next project to be implemented at the Rainha da Sucata shantytown, coordinated by the Municipality and carried out by Viva Comunidade, each youth will cost three times that amount.
 
To question certainties and bring down walls

The project is about changing mindsets, believes Carlos Costa, and part of that work is done by deconstructing the no-go zones in the community. More than that, it is a question of telling apart real danger from drug gang folklore.

“When we arrived at Maré, we arrived in the middle of a drug war between gangs: 160 thousand residents, four criminal organizations, a territory lined with borders people do not dare cross, a highly hostile environment. Our concern was to find a way to overcome this local rationale,” said Costa.

At first, Protejo split up the young beneficiaries according to groups that respected local territorial divisions, as the course unfolded, organizers fostered interaction among the different groups through seminars organized by the youths themselves and field trips outside the neighborhood. One such trip took kids to a community where drug gangs had been ousted and neighborhood police force had settled in, the so-called “pacified communities (UPP)”. “The interaction brought local certainties into question, it brought local youths into contact with their peers on the other side of local gang boundaries and it subsequently gave them a new understanding of the state, which includes a new understanding of the police, the health system, the school system,” said Costa.

“What I liked best about Protejo was because we were able to learn about our rights and duties. In our community we only have the point of view of the drug trade, and they try to influence us by giving us some benefits. Protejo was like a door to a bigger world,” said Beatriz Pereira da Silva, also a resident of Maré (photo, below). Today she is an office assistant and is planning to get a college degree in Business Administration.

According to Protejo coordinators, the project calls into question the culture of fear. Introduced to locals as a project backed by state institutions such as the Ministry of Justice, Projeto starts by questioning the power of local illegal organizations, the power of drug lords, and the local folklore that limits resident’s freedoms.
 
Carlos Costa describes how the project questions local assumptions, “how can drug lords be seen as heroes if they put kids in the line of fire for them? We also tell local youths that police officers can be made accountable for their actions through the justice system. And that young people have a right to use their local health clinics for aid in birth control,” said Costa.

Once the youths are engaged, there is always the question of drop outs. Brazil’s Ministry of Justice expects none less than all youths enrolled to follow through to the end. But Alex Goes does not think the monitoring methodology is appropriate. “In São Gonçalo we started out with one thousand youths and ended with 635. Of the 265 youths who left the project half way, we found that while some youths had simply dropped out, many did so because they chose to go back to school or because they got a job,” said Goes.

Is there life after the project?

Protejo is a one time only project in the community. Once it is over, there are no new editions. Asked whether the community would benefit from its continued presence, Carlos Costa explained that when the project enters a community, it establishes partnerships with local organizations, churches, cultural groups, and resident’s associations. “We make sure that we explicitly and publicly reject any association with criminal organizations. As a result, the Protejo helps to find and develop local leaders, and more so among local youths. Once they have completed this immersion in citizenship, a seed is planted. To repeat the process would make no sense,” said Carlos Costa.