Flying from Amazonas to Sao Paulo was quite like leaving one jungle for another. The sprawling urban mecca of Sao Paulo contains a population of over 11 million people, making it South America's most populated city. My orientation began in haste having checked into at a fantastic hostel in the neighbourhood of Vila Mariana (the owners would later take me to experience the eclectic nightlife of Sao Paulo, where we danced until dawn). Whilst the downtown area lacks the beautiful vistas of other major cities, it is a hub for the ethnically diverse population. There are large japanese, italian and arabic communities in the city - which prides itself on its diversity.
Much of my weekend has been spent looking for "real" examples of participation and mobilisation in the Sao Paulo context. I was fortunate enough to stumble across a "Legalise Abortion" demonstration as I walked through the downtown area. I managed to speak to one of the organisers who had been particularly motivated by what she saw as the repressive approach of the state and Roman Catholic Church to abortion in Brazil where there is a legal penalty attached to a woman undergoing the procedure. This form of direct action was one that she saw as necessary and a means of increasing of both awareness and the membership base for the cause. The group had become tightly organised to be as effective as possible - I asked whether PB might provide an opportunity for their voice to be heard in Sao Paulo. My respondent felt that PB was a means for local issues not national issues to be addressed. For their group it was not about money - it was about changing policy.
Today I met Marcelo Barreto, Co-ordinator of the local skills and capacity building programme Fundacao Projeto Pescar. I will be visiting Marcelo's programme tomorrow, but today he invited me on a bike ride around the city and spoke at length about his experience of PB and working to increase community capacity and skills. We also stumbled across an example of Sao Paulo's City Hall's programme of community participation - one of the park's was looking for a representative to sit on the park council. If you look at the photo of the poster- you will see that the community representative must be over the age of 18. Interestingly, at the time we cycled through at least 40% of the users of the park were under the age of 18.
My final two days in Sao Paulo are going to be quite busy. I really want to probe the City Hall about how the machinery of participatory processes work in a city so vast and ethnically diverse and I also want to speak to ordinary citizens about their own experiences of community mobilisation and the various forms of participation offered by Sao Paulo's City Hall.
Would be interesting to see any examples of where young people are invited to participate in decision making- the 'over 18s only' is an easy rule to include in things like this and often seems to be the default setting.
ReplyDeleteIt makes you wonder whether excluding what could be a major group (as in this case) is an oversight, or a strategy to make the process easier to deliver and ensure that baseline objectives are met, regardless of whether it's meaningful or not. Ill-considered? Perhaps just apathetic.
Realise you have left SP now. Need to get up to date!
Thanks Holly.
ReplyDeleteMy initial thoughts are that there are two reason's:
The first is that the seats on council's like this and as delegates for PB councils are closer akin to the position of councillors in the UK - but elected for specific purposes. I.e a very robust election procedure with decision-making powers, therefore the argument that the representative needs to be legally responsible for their decisions might be the justification for this.
Secondly I think that the concept of youth involvement may be underdeveloped in this context. I was didn't see any real examples of young people being involved in decision making structures, although they may exist.
I feel I'm only scratching the surface with this stuff, but it would be great to probe further.