The "Area of Risk" Justification for Favela Removals: The Case of Santa Marta

http://rioonwatch.org/?p=11410

In light of the two international events, the 2014 World  Cup and the 2016 Olympics Games, Rio's favelas have been the target for projects of favela eradication and home demolitions. Rio's Mayor Eduardo Paes announced the plan of 5% reduction of favelas and demolitions of residences in 'environmentally risky area', in which most favelas are located.

This is the case for the favela Santa Marta, which for several years has been under the threat of eviction. The residents, whose homes are part of their history and identity, have organized to stop this projects, protesting and taking their fights to court.

In 2010, during the first favela removal phase, evictions were abrupt. As in the case of the favela Metro-Mangueira, residents of the favelas were left in their demolished ruins of their homes. Other than the psychological state of frustration and despair, the residents were exposed to increased risk of diseases as dengue.

Beginning in 2008, Police Pacification Units (UPP) have been implemented in many favelas. In order to create a 'safer' environment for the million of tourists estimated for the 2014 World Cup, the policy approach to urban poverty in Rio underwent a switch from 'urban upgrading' to 'pacification'. The main goal of the UPP is not to stop criminality and end drug trafficking, but instead to take back territories controlled by drug factions. Recently, bringing social services and social investments started to take place in a few favelas. As a result of this policy approach, crime rates have been significantly decreasing.

What Can We Do About Child Marriage?

Lauren Farmer’s article “Child Marriage: When does a cultural practice become a global health issue?” appearing in Berkeley’s Public Health Advocate magazine issue of fall 2013, encourages readers to rethink how passively we approach the issue of child marriage in developing countries, as it is protected by the limitations on our cultural prowess due to ideals of reverence and appreciation of societies different from our own that have emerged since the fall of Western imperialism. We understandably fear overstepping our boundaries as it could provoke subdued emotions regarding the era of colonialism in the countries that we—the West—had once oppressed, resulting in numerous political problems that I, as a science major, can only guess at. The only problem here is, what if our regard for another’s culture enables the suffering of millions of young girls around the world every year to take place?

As an individual pursuing the medical and public health track, I don’t look at the photograph in the article of teenage fiancés who are meeting for the first time on their wedding day being wed as an expression of a culture and tradition that are hundreds of years old—I see only the injustice being carried out that results in the numerous medical problems detailed in the article, and this doesn’t even begin to explain the human rights and mental health issues at stake. Chief among these problems are early and frequent childbirths that has been causally linked to seizures, hemorrhaging during labor, chronic incontinence, infections, and even death of the child and the mother.

              The problem tree continues to grow: when a girl is married young and is made to start a family young, she is generally sexually assaulted by her husband—especially as she cannot really consent—she drops out of school, she loses the opportunity for a job, and she ends up minimally contributing to society, the economy, and her country (unless, of course, she produces a number of male offspring).

              When all of these undesirable consequences are occurring with child marriage at the root of the problem, can we really coax ourselves into thinking we have no say in that cultural realm? And if not, how can we reconcile cultural differences into a feasible solution while inviting minimal amount of hostility from those whose culture we are criticizing? I am not naïve and recognize that a glorious solution with which all parties involved will be happy is not going to occur, but the faction of impoverished female children with opportunities being snatched from them before they are even old enough to know what those might have been, has been given the short end of the stick for far too long.

              We need policy change, we need action. We need to make a better world for the children who are being veiled not only in a wedding outfit but by the notion of cultural boundaries and the inability of those with power to take a risk to reach out behind the veil and help them.

Street Food

Street Vendors

Whenever I'm abroad, I tend to stay away from restaurants and consume 90% of my meals from street vendors. I prefer street food because it's cheap, convenient, and I see exactly what is being sold so there are no surprises. I also avoid restaurants because I believe that street food is where the authentic cuisines are. Cooked food made to order (usually by a women), street food taste like homemade food. However, I realized that street vending is more than a job, it is an effort to place a place in the exclusive market economy. Scholars have come to name street vending as a business in the informal economy because it lacks legitimacy.

Over winter break I was in China and of course, chowed down to street food. No matter the city I was in, street vendors were there. In Shanghai, a city that is comparable to New York City and surely a world class city, I encountered street vendors conducting their businesses. Even in a wealthy city like Shanghai, there is still a place for street vendors. My observations pushes me to argue that street vendors exist because they are necessary in the development of any world class cities. Scholarship on street vendors argues that vendors provide cheap and fast food to the low wage worker that supports the daily operations of a world class city. 

Mindy Budgor, Rich American Woman, Becomes Maasai’s First Woman Warrior

Thirty three-year-old, Caucasian, middleclass Mindy Budgor is the first female Maasai warrior, marking a historic moment in Africa and beyond on her own! She’s even written a book about her exhausting, yet inspiring experience called, “Warrior Princess: My Quest to Become the First Female Maasai Warrior,” which was published in late 2013 that doesn't at all reek of imperialism, privilege, or cultural incompetency. She hadn't always set out to be a Maasai warrior. After attending undergrad at the University of Chicago, building and selling a business, and getting a job that “kept me in Gucci,” then 27-year-old Budgor was ready to find herself. Realizing that all of the glitz and glamour her life consisted of was not all the world had to offer, she set out to find a purpose and a meaning to her life. Unlike many other Americans, she discovered that there could be no better way to accomplish this then head over to Africa to help build a health clinic there. Budgor found herself in the Maasai Mara, a reserve in southwestern Kenya, where the Maasai people lived.

The Maasai consist of semi-nomadic tribes who live in Kenya and Tanzania who began migrating South from Northwest Kenya in the 15^th century. The Maasai have many rites of passage and ceremonies, including circumcision and emanyatta, where a man might live for up to ten years learning how to be a morran (warrior). In her Today Show interview, Budgor recounts a conversation with a Maasai warrior and is baffled when he asserts that women are not strong enough or brave enough to be warriors. She then comments to her interviewers, “Gosh, I’ve got to fly around the world to hear the same thing again?” Although similar patriarchal behavior has been heavily demonstrated in Budgor’s own nation, it seemed fitting that she prove men wrong in a completely different country and become Maasai’s first woman warrior by flying back to her home in the States, training for six weeks to prepare herself to be a warrior, and then flying back to Kenya. 

Returning to Kenya, Budgor showed even more courage and grit than ever before in the face of huge obstacles. Budgor was told no by a local chief with whom she had worked during her stint with the health clinic. Budgor did not know the local language and needed a translator during the entire duration of her stay. Budgor wanted to change centuries of tradition by participating in a sacred rite of passage that women have never been allowed into. Moreover, she needed to be the mouthpiece for all Maasai women and change the status quo and show the Maasai men and women that women were equal to men (but that neither were equal to Americans). Somehow, despite these numerous red warning flags, Budgor succeeded and had a Maasai warrior lead her through the rite of passage—shortened from three to seven years to a grueling two and a half months. She recounts all of these difficulties, saying that she could bring “nothing but the bare essentials” which included “a bottle of Chanel Dragon red nail polish and a set of pearl earrings.” World renowned media sources such as Glamour magazine have featured excerpts of Budgor’s memoir in their publications. Although the journey was difficult, Budgor says that during the experience, “I felt beautiful. I felt strong. I felt proud.” The experience was certainly empowering for Budgor, though whether or not that feeling is shared with the rest of the Maasai people remains a mystery.

Later, when asked about what advice she would give to readers, she says, “Dig deep. Find your passion. Never let no get in your way. If you hit a roadblock, bulldoze it.”

Whether that roadblock is not having your Chanel Dragon red nail polish during a hunting trip in Kenya or having to change the longstanding traditions of a tribal community to prove a point, without hesitation or thought of consequence, you should always overcome it.

Because who knows? Maybe you, too, are the next female warrior.

Read the Glamour excerpt of Mindy’s book here:

http://www.glamour.com/inspired/2013/09/meet-mindy-budgor-the-worlds-first-female-maasai-warrior?currentPage=1

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Sidenote: While I will not be going abroad, I saw Mindy’s book and the huge response to it, both good and bad, as something really interesting and relevant for us to discuss, especially in addressing our roles as volunteers. Although we may see Mindy’s actions as thoughtless, self-aggrandizing, and completely oblivious to the culture and people that she was “immersing” herself in, I believe that Mindy had good intentions about what she was trying to do. We all have good intentions, too, and maybe without having gone to Berkeley or taken GPP 115 I could’ve done the same thing. And if we can learn anything from Mindy—though it might not be the message that she was trying to get across—it might be that we need more than good intentions, whether that is trying to understand those who you will be working with or being conscious of your own background and privilege. 

U.S. Electrification "Partnershiph" with Tanzania

While browsing NPR, I came upon this audio news recording titled "Obama Promises Billions to Double Africa's Electricity Access" (listen here: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=197713640&m=197713651). Since my practice experience this summer will be with the Maasai Women's Development Organisation health clinic, I thought that this provoked many questions, especially since my organization serves the distant pastoral villages in Northern Tanzania.

Quite simply, Obama's campaign called "Power Africa" aims to invest $7 billion dollars to Africa in order to increase local's and businesses access to electricity, and to ultimately unleash Africa's economic potential. The reasons offered by NPR's Greg Warner are the following: 1) the "tremendous need in Africa" for street lights, keeping medicines cold, etc, 2) an advantage for the U.S. economy as the administration sees Africa as an untapped resource for businesses, and 3) to encourage green technology to be tried and implemented for clean power.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love electricity. I love being able to study on my laptop at night and have the leisure to learn about international conditions at the click of a button; to be able to connect to internet; charge my phone; use light when cooking; and everything else. And I do believe that anyone anywhere can benefit from electricity if they choose, especially entire economies in terms of the marginal increase in the possibilities for entrepreneurs and increasing internal businesses. But, just like any technology being introduced, how will this be received? How will locals feel about having to pay a utility bill for the first time? Do they even want it? Will they have a choice? What locations will be selected for electrification? Will the neglected/outskirting regions all over Africa be reached? Whether or not the concept of electrification is going to be a positive change (short and long run) can be debated by African politicians and locals, U.S. tax payers, businesses, and even students.

What I am curious to know, is which U.S. entities have an interest in this, and to whose benefit? According to Obama, this is not charity. This is business. Whose business? Well, $7 billion will be coming from the U.S. government and $9 billion will be from the private sector. The private sector including big names like General Electric and even smaller U.S. companies, all in the hope that they can expand their businesses and make money investing in Africa by including it in the global economy. The idea of imperialism is hard to avoid as I wonder how these businesses will be conducted, and if African countries' benefits will be converted to positive action to improvement or to embezzlement/corruption. Transnational business will undoubtedly seek to exploit local employees to maximize profits. So who is going to regulate conduct and actually enforce it? Will these businesses moving result in shared fortune? Or will the margin of inequality widen?

Implications if the rich are less compassionate

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/

Our recent discussion in lecture featured Professor Talwalker's essay, "What Kind of Global Citizen is the Student Volunteer." One of the interesting studies she brings up is Piff et. al's work on prosociality. Lower class individuals demonstrate greater procial behavior and are more compassionate than upper class individuals. This plays directly against the common notion of charitable, lavish donors vs. poor families who are inherently selfish to maintain the little they have.

The above article elaborates more on Piff and Keltner's exact research. As you can see through the article, Piff and Keltner have run a multitude of experiments to show that the affluent form a disconnect with the poor and suffering since they themselves don't experience it on a daily basis. This inability to relate/connect affects their inclination to be charitable. What interests me is the implications of this study on the developmental aid industry and theory. Critics and theorists like Jeffrey Sachs call for nations to abide to their previous agreement to donating 1% of their total GDP. This, in Sachs' perspective, would transform the developing world, pushing them up the ladder of development. However, if this problem persists and nation still refuse to donate 1% of more of their GDP to charity, the individual donor contribution becomes much more vital. With this study in mind, and assuming it applies to most affluent people (since most have grown up in affluence all their lives), the concept that enough aid will flow to these nations is not practical. To extend this concept further, since politics and wealth have grown together in recent years so drastically, the reason why many developed nations are not donating their 1% share of their GDP to third world nations is because of this lack of compassion.

We can also extend this concept that the rich possess less compassion more thoroughly in the realm of politics. The individuals running for office these days are often people who live lavishly. More and more money has to be spent on campaigning, much of it out-of-pocket expenses. Politics correlate to wealth which correlate to power. In order to run for any political office these days, you must have a lot of money to first of all reach that level in which a party puts trust in you and while campaigning. Thus the rich are the only citizens with access to the power of the government, the institution that perhaps requires the most compassion out of all our nation's institutions since its job is to take care of its people to maintain a functional society. With people at the top with all this power lacking in compassion due to a disconnect with the poor he governs over, poverty inevitably results.  Food stamps get cut and welfare for the poor become less a priority.

Of course, there are exceptions to the scenarios I described above, and they are extremist. This indication that the rich has less compassion than low-income families is not the only factor that influences the success of the aid industry or politics. But it could be a root cause for these issues. The problem is if they are inherent tendencies humans have in hierarchical political/economic systems. if they are, then they are terribly difficult to fix.

Raise the Village: how playing this social development game might be representative of "bad" poverty work

Have you ever wished that you could turn all those hours that you've spent playing life simulation games (i.e. Sims, Farmville, etc.) into something more productive, meaningful, purposeful? Well now you can... or can you?

Raise the Village is a game developed by a group called New Charity Era. In Raise the Village, the player can create a highly personalized virtual village while simultaneously transforming an actual village-- the village of Kapir Atiira in Uganda. In the process, the player is given the option to make meaningful decisions about the progression of his/her village, with the ultimate goal of making it "sustainable." For each item bought (i.e. a mosquito net, clothes, etc.), a portion of the money goes toward an actual item for the village, and once the items are purchased, he/she will be able to see pictures of the people benefiting from the game with the items. The game even includes a portal that players can enter to learn about the culture and lifestyle of locals there by reading blog posts, watching videos, and viewing pictures. Now, all this information I take from a post by New Charity Era, the organization behind the game, made up of a team of 6 guys, purportedly with a vision of changing the world, one village at a time.

Watch the trailer for the app here:

Now, I had a difficult time concluding my thoughts on this. Is the concept genius? Or is it just plain wrong? Trying to find more about the game, and about the organization behind it was difficult. The website (www.raisethevillage.com) is no longer functioning, so it was difficult to find recent updates about the game. It seems that the game is no longer available, although I am not sure why, as it used to be available on the app store for ipads, iphones, etc. with over 300,000 downloads. My guess is that the funding was no longer there, so the guys moved on. For now, I'll just present some thoughts about it, and let you guys share what you think.

(A brief note before I begin: It's possible I might be generalizing some of the game details here. I wanted to try and play it but I couldn't find it anywhere! So hopefully I am not misrepresenting the game too much.)

My main concern with the game and the concept behind it is that it runs the risk of over-trivializing actual decisions to be made regarding the community. The player is not exposed to the reality of the circumstances that the decision is placed in, nor the context. For example, if you are given the decision to buy mosquito nets for the community, do you know what the burden from malaria is to the community? What value might the nets be if there is no local knowledge about how malaria is transmitted and how it can be properly prevented? Are there any cultural concerns that might interfere with the use of the nets? These are all questions that are left unaddressed and overlooked in the process of the player "making his/her move." Next, the power of ownership: while the concept of the game might be able to generate resources that the community lacks (money, food, etc.), how can the locals of this village in Uganda take ownership of addressing these issues in their community? How are their thoughts and their input in assessing their own needs valued? These concerns bring me to the notion of the importance of participatory development, which we recently discussed in class. It seems that the power that the player has in such a game is so disproportionate, characterizing this kind of "charity" or poverty work as the "unequal and one-way transaction" that Professor Talwalker brings up in her essay. The player is somehow both the ruler/decision-maker and the benefactor. This, to me, is concerning.

Perhaps I am being over-critical. I mean, it is a virtual game developed with the main incentive of "doing good" for this village in Uganda. Perhaps it is even informative to some people who have a complete blind eye to the existence of poverty in the world. Besides, why would anybody want to play a game that is representative of the true circumstances and contexts of poverty? Maybe I am overanalyzing it, but it seems to me that the rules and concepts of the game represent a lot of what is wrong with development and poverty work, where the player of the game literally represents the well-intentioned but misinformed international development player. Isn't it condescending to the state of countries like Uganda that first world citizens are playing, for the sake of entertainment, a game in which we exercise power to make decisions about community development in a third world country, of which we know nothing of?

I'd be interesting in hearing what others might have to say. What do you guys think- would you play this game?