By catering to youths, homicide rates drop

“I can play really well!” Bliner dos Santos, 19, is learning to play the recorder. He is one of 900 youths who take part in art, sports and culture workshops at Cabana do Pai Tomás in a low income neighborhood in Belo Horizonte, capital of Brazil’s landlocked state of Minas Gerais.

With the aim of lowering the homicide rate in the State of Minas Gerais, these workshops and a number of similar initiatives have been launched as the Fica Vivo! (which translates as Be Smart/Stay Alive!) program since 2002, by the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and by the State Government, (through the Crime Prevention Superintendency and the Social Defense Office) – a successful example of public policy in violence prevention.

Bliner began learning music in 2004, when the Fica Vivo! project arrived in Cabana, at the city´s west zone. The recorder class is one of 15 workshops offered to youths at one of the most violent areas of Belo Horizonte.

“We are in a different world after the Fica Vivo!,” said Bliner, a middle school student. “I feel much safer, and practically do not hear shootouts any more,” he said. And he is not only interested in the workshops. “Today I am a calm person, I practice sports, I feel good about myself; I have changed a lot. Fica Vivo has changed people’s mindsets,” he said.

In 2002 there were a recorded 36 homicides in a region with 24 thousand inhabitants. In 2006 recorded homicides dropped to 12, echoing a trend in neighboring communities. Over all, of the 19 regions that received the program (nine in the capital) showed significant lowering in the homicide rates, while the capital an increase, according to dada provided by the Center for Public Security and Criminality Studies (Crisp/UFMG) and the State Office for Social Defense (Seds).

Dialogue and mediation

I am not merely a capoeira teacher here, explains Márcio da Silva, 25, and responsible for the capoeira class at the Crime Prevention Center (NPC) at Cabana since 2004. “I try to keep in touch with the youths here, I talk to them about drugs, about violence, and I always make sure I am relating it to their neighborhoods,” says Silva, who stresses the fact that Fica Vivo! is not only about culture and leisure.

The NPCs have as a goal to guide and train workshop facilitators on issues of public security and on ways to stay true to the experiences of youths– whether these youths are seen as at risk or not. “We have had very positive results. Apart from lowering the homicide rate, there have been less clashes among gangs and less shoot-outs,” says Sabrina Mascarenha, psychologist and a coordinator of Cabana NPC.

The initiative at Cabana includes a conflict mediation center, especially important due to gang violence in the area associated with drug trafficking, violence that would stop locals from moving about freely.

Community mobilization

 “The community has gained new life,” said Márcio, a fellow workshop facilitator who also lives at Cabana. The Fica Vivo! team also helped the community ask city government for an Education Center for Youths and Adults that has already opened its doors, and the community is now asking for a center contemplating secondary education. “This time they are doing it themselves,” said Sabrina, proud of the initiative.

Finding it difficult to point out a single cause of Fica Vivo!’s success, the coordinator believes much of it lies in the fact it is an interdisciplinary program. “The difference here is that we bring other sources of knowledge to the discussion of public security, not confining ourselves to Police or Law,” she said.

But Fica Vivo! does include police work. “Apart from what we call social protection work, Fica Vivo also includes a branch we call “strategic intervention” made up of agents of the law, the Public Ministry, the Civil and the Military Police forces –who are in charge of trained repression.” In the coordinator’s words, police work at Cabana “includes specific planning methodology for actions and interventions in the areas that host Fica Vivo! initiatives, since we feel it must be tailored to their needs.”

One of the main innovations is the creation of the Special Risk Area Police Unit (Gepar) inspired in Rio de Janeiro state’s GPAE, is that officers trained to interact with the community. The idea is to establish better relationships between police and locals.

“The idea itself is a great one. If it worked in practice it would be wonderful,“ said Márcio da Silva. Despite recognizing the improvement of security in the community, he says that locals still have their misgivings with respect to the police. “Sometimes they fail to treat community members with respect, but I believe that is how the police works and it cannot change just because it’s a Gepar,” he said.

Read Further: (In Portuguese)

O impacto da violência sobre crianças e jovens

Avaliação do programa Fica Vivo no município de Belo Horizonte

Prevenindo homicídios: Avaliação do Programa Fica Vivo no Morro das Pedras em Belo Horizonte

Secretaria de Estado de Defesa Social

Translated by Lis Horta Moriconi