Circulation, fears and games

CECIP

Circulation, fears and games: The impacts of the Pacifying Police Unit Policy over the children living in Morro dos Macacos – Rio de Janeiro/ Brazil

Researchers: Beatriz Corsino Pérez and Mariana Koury

CECIP - Centro de Criação de Imagem Popular FBvL - Fundação Bernard van Leer

Rio de Janeiro, August of 2013 Translation: Mariana Chianca

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CECIP Executive summary

The Circulation, fears and games: The impacts of the Pacifying Police Unit over the children living in Morro dos Macacos research project, carried out during June and July of 2013, has the goal of investigating the repercussions of the Pacifying Police Unit policy (UPP) in the lives of children living in the Morro dos Macacos, a low-income urban community (favela) located in the north zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The methodology consisted of workshops involving 35 children and discussion groups with 15 educators and 25 mothers.

Our starting point was the data collected in 2010 by CECIP - Centro de Criação de Imagem Popular - on the impacts of public policies regarding security and other initiatives in the community regarding small children. In 2010, the three low-income urban communities selected were: Morro dos Macacos and Santa Marta, in Rio de Janeiro, and Calabar, in Salvador. At the time, Morro dos Macacos had just been occupied by the Special Operations Squad (Batalhão de Operações Especiais - Bope) to set up a Pacifying Police Unit (Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora (UPP)1. The research exposed many of the residents’ uncertainties and expectations for the future as well as show that children from this favela were highly affected by the routine of violence. Three years later, the research team went back to Morro dos Macacos to understand if there were any changes in the children’s’ lives in general with the presence of the UPP. The current research showed that the installation of the UPP had a positive impact in children’s’ mobility (which also affects adults) and changed their games and fears, no longer linked to urban violence. The decrease in armed conflicts between outlaws, police officers and rival gang members affected the children’s’ relationships and imagination. Many of the residents’ demands remain, such as improvement of sanitation, regular garbage collection service and actions to decrease the number of thefts in the community. Even though the UPP gave the residents expectations based on promises made by the government, many problems were left unsolved and are still an obstacle to guarantee rights and quality of life for the population of Morro dos Macacos.

Key words: Violence, Security, Child, Favela

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In this paper, we will use the Brazilian acronyms Bope and UPP. 2

CECIP 1. Introduction In the end of 2010, the Centro de Criação de Imagem Popular (CECIP) — Center for the Creation of Popular Image — in partnership with the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Unirio), and sponsered by the Bernard van Leer Foundation, conducted a research on the impact of public policies regarding security and other initiatives in the community over small children. The three low income communities chosen were Morro dos Macacos (Rio de Janeiro), Santa Marta (Rio de Janeiro) and Calabar (Salvador, Bahia). The methodology included surveying who was responsible for the children, creating focus groups involving educators, parents and adolescents and interviewing people responsible for social projects which dealt with children, community leaders, shop owners and health agents. Also, workshops with small children were carried out to identify what caused fear and made them feel unsafe. A total of 319 people participated in the investigation, residents of the three favelas.

At the time this first research project took place, it had been two years since the UPP had been implanted in the favela Santa Marta, bringing a new public policy regarding security that strove to change the way in which the police acted. Instead of occasional invasions with a high death rate, the new model sought to regain territories occupied by heavily armed drug dealers and to establish permanent activity for the police in the favelas. With the UPP's presence, it was expected that new governmental programs as well as public and private services would be available to the residents of Morro Santa Marta and to the other communities that had already received the new security policy.

The police's strategy to regain the territory was composed of three steps: first, police officers of the BOPE announced the upcoming invasion of the favela, entered finding resistance at times, and occupied it. The BOPE established itself in the community, searching houses and residents suspected of being involved in dealing narcotics, to confiscate arms and drugs and to arrest drug dealers. The second step was passing the control of the favela to the UPP, made up by military police officers that would remain in the community indefinitely. Thirdly, the Social UPP's work began.

Created in 2010, the project for the Social UPP was at first coordinated by the Secretary of State for Social Assistance and Human Rights (Secretaria de Estado de Assistência Social e Direitos Humanos). In the beginning of 2011, the program was attributed to the City Hall, with 3

CECIP its management moved to the Pereira Passos Institute (IPP), that was, at the time, the planning institute for the city. The Social UPP had the goal of improving the quality of life of residents of favelas that already had UPP and to articulate the favela dwellers' demands with possibilities of action to attend those demands by the government, civil society and private sector. The inauguration of the Social UPP took place in a community forum where the government representatives and residents were present. The action continued through meetings with residents and local leaders.

In October of 2010, the Morro dos Macacos had just been occupied by the BOPE to prepare the favela to receive the UPP. When we conducted the research, there was tension and insecurity in the air related to what could happen there. During the surveys and interviews, some people preferred not to talk about violence. One child told us that before BOPE's entrance, he/she was afraid of the police, but from then on would no longer feel that way. We noticed that there was an expectation to see a different police acting in the Morro dos Macacos, one that could support and bring safety to the residents.

We witnessed a meeting between the BOPE and residents to present the team and to explain what their action would be like in the favela. Though the meeting was full, some people chose not to show up for the sole act of being there could be interpreted as a sign of support for the police. They feared that the “olheiros do tráfico” - the drug dealers' scouts would tell the drug dealers that they were at the meeting. One resident narrated how they received the news that the UPP would arrive in the Morro dos Macacos: “On Children’s' Day, the drug dealers threw a farewell party for the community. We already expected UPP; we saw on the TV that they were going to come. On Wednesday, all the outlaws gathered to decide what they were going to do".

The drug dealers left the favela on the eve of the Bope entry and many of their family members decided to leave as well, out of fear. Since the police's presence in the community was still recent, the research collected the expectations and fears of the residents of the Morro dos Macacos regarding the UPP. The third site of the research was Calabar, in Bahia State, a counterpoint to this new public policy on security. There, the favela dwellers witnessed shootings between police and armed drug dealers on a regular basis.

The research's outcome (CECIP, 2010) showed that the installation of the UPP had a positive impact on small children in the favela Santa Marta, for they could now walk around 4

CECIP freely. Unlike the residents of the Morro dos Macacos, they were no longer afraid of seeing police officers or of hearing helicopter noises over the community2. Yet the relationship established between the police officers of the UPP and the residents was unsatisfactory. The residents complained that the police officers were unprepared to work in communities, to converse and to mediate conflicts. Another problem was the attribution of several functions to the Police that were unrelated to public security. This institution ended up concentrating a lot of power in the favela, often establishing an authoritative relationship with residents. This meant that the favelas with UPP continued to live under the condition of exception, which did not apply to the rest of the city.

Another challenge appeared in a new feeling of insecurity in the Santa Marta favela. This occurred because while the community was under the control of drug dealers, the residents lived under certain behavioral rules that when broken were immediately punished rigorous and violently. When the government’s laws arrived, the residents perceived that the punishments no longer existed or became lighter, leading to an increase in petty crimes and fights.

The research also revealed that once they reduced the shootings, the residents’ greatest preoccupations became urbanization and environmental issues, emphasizing the lack of proper garbage disposal and poor sanitation. A significant result was the perception that to extinguish violence alongside the increase in police force, they should offer afterschool social projects for children and adolescents, training in careers with the possibility of getting higher in the social ladder for young adults and good public daycares. The residents also felt the need for outdoors spaces that were adequate for children to play, for at the time they were restricted to alleys and rooftops.

Another source of concern was that the presence of the police and the definitive arrival of legalized services (water, electricity, garbage removal, cable TV) would generate a rise in the value of real estate and an increase in the living costs in the favela. The Morro Santa Marta could suffer a process called “white removal” or gentrification – when populations traditionally rooted in an area that is “revitalized” can no longer stay there for economic reasons. This matter disturbed the residents, for they liked where they lived and stated that they would only leave in extreme cases, such as landslides or violence.

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The police officers made incursions in the favelas using helicopters to identify where the drug dealers were and would often shoot from above in the direction of the favela in an attempt to hit them. This situation generated tension and fear to all residents, affecting the children also.

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CECIP In 2011, CECIP conducted the research “As políticas públicas de segurança e de urbanização das favelas do Rio de Janeiro e atenção dada às crianças pequenas” – Public Policies Regarding Security and Urbanization of the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro and the Attention Given to Small Children – with Osvaldo Cruz Foundation as partner and supported by Bernard van Leer Foundation. The methodology used a qualitative analysis of newspaper reports and semi structured interviews with representatives and people involved in the following programs: UPP; Social UPP; Morar Carioca – Carioca Living – government urbanization program; Department of Education; and participant observations in meetings and community forums of the Social UPP. This research (CECIP, 2011) concluded that the UPPs sought to become close to the residents by the relationship they established with the children. They offered courses in several favelas such as martial arts, music, computer skills and foreign language. Some police officers visited schools regularly, teaching in a program for preventing the use of drugs and violence (PROERD) supported by the local government. Also, they promoted field trips and cultural activities for the kids. The Social UPP did not promote actions especially for these children. It had the role of articulating several municipal departments (secretarias) and their existent social programs. The Social UPP orientated NGOs and private initiatives that wished to act in the favelas, including projects that targeted children, by sharing specific information about the favelas with UPP. The government’s urbanization program Morar Carioca did not include the children’s participation in planning the construction or the creation of recreational areas for them.

In June of 2013, we decided to return to Morro dos Macacos to update the information on the research regarding the impact of public policies regarding security and urbanization over small children. To do so, we carried out activities with 35 children from 3 to 10 y.o. and discussed the outcome of the 2010 research with 20 educators and 35 mothers. We chose Morro dos Macacos because it was a favela whose image was strongly linked to drug trafficking. It was in the headlines when, on October 17th of 2009, a Military Police helicopter that was leading an operation in the favela was shot down and exploded by drug traffickers, killing two police officers. One year later, on October 14th of 2010, the police occupied Morro dos Macacos and set up the 13th UPP in the city of Rio de Janeiro.

In 2013, we sought to understand what the children’s situation was like after almost three 6

CECIP years after the installation of the UPP in this favela, in terms of security and its repercussions on the residents’ lives.

Methodology

In this research we used a qualitative methodology to comprehend the opinions of adults and children about the changes in Morro dos Macacos after three years with the presence of the UPP. We established a partnership with a local institution that had participated in the research in 2010. This institution was Centro Educacional da Criança e do Adolescente Lídia dos Santos Vila Isabel (CEACA-Vila), which administrates the community daycare Patinho Feliz and the Centro Cultural da Criança (CCCria) – Child’s Cultural Center, in Morro dos Macacos.

Three discussion groups were held with adults: The first was composed of 15 educators from the daycare. The other two groups, with 15 and 20 participants, were composed of mothers and one father of the children enrolled in the daycare or in CCCria, grouped randomly. The invitation to participate in the research was sent to all parties responsible for the children, but the people present were almost exclusively women. Most of them did not work to care for their children or were unemployed; others asked to leave early from work to attend the meeting.

The meeting with the adults began with introductions and a moment to relax. We spread out over the table some pictures of old games that people use to be play in the street and we asked the participants to choose the one they identified most with. Each person had to explain why they chose a particular photo, state their name, if they lived in Morro dos Macacos (for the educators) and their relationship to the child (for the parents/guardians). Next, we asked some questions to the participants regarding the games and the children’s circulation in the favela; insecurity and violence; the relationship between the police and the community; cost of living and the investments made in the area; critiques and suggestions to improve Morro dos Macacos.

The questions were based on the information obtained from the 2010 research. Some had fragments of interviews with the residents to instigate a discussion about the previous situation and the present. For example: “In the 2010 research a resident said: ‘the community is seen as a dangerous place by people who don’t live in it, which is justified because the press only 7

CECIP publishes tragedies and not the social projects’. Do you think the image of Morro dos Macacos has changed?” This way, we sought to give feedback concerning the first research and instigate reflection among the participants about the favela’s and the small children’s current situation.

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CECIP Table 1, Discussion group with adults Adult groups Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Participants

Activities

15 educators from

Presentation;

Patinho Feliz Daycare

Dynamic: games of yesterday and today;

20 mothers from CCCria and

Discussion about the results of the 2010

from the Daycare

research and about the children and the

14 mothers and one father

community after the arrival of the UPP.

from CCCria and from the Daycare

With the children, we also created three groups: two with children from the daycare (3 to 4 y.o.) and the third with children that attended the CCCria (5 to 10 y.o.).

With the first daycare group, we made nametags with the children’s names as a warm-up, and then we chose to explore the subject of fear. We read the book “Vai embora grande monstro verde” – (Go away big green monster) (Emberley, 2009). After that, the children asked us to keep telling stories, so we chose to read the book “Os pesadelos de Liza” – (Liza’s nightmares) (Gutman, 2010), to relate to the theme. Finally, we talked to the children exploring the following matters: “What would you get rid of?”, “What don’t you like?”, “What are you afraid of?”, “Have you had nightmares?” and we asked them to draw on a piece of paper.

Reading to the children

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CECIP With the second group of children, we proposed the same activity, but instead of drawing, the children used play dough to express their fears. Since we had more time, we had the chance to explore the topic of the favela’s environment: what they see in the path between their houses and their daycare, who they meet along the way, what difficulties they have to overcome, what are the problems and the good things that they experience. On a sheet of paper, we drew the daycare and the houses on the opposing extremities and a route linking them. The proposition was for the children to draw things they encountered in the path from their houses to the daycare and back.

As with the groups with older children (5 to 10 y.o.), we started the workshop by making nametags. We read the story “Chapeuzinho Amarelo” – (Little Yellow Riding Hood), (Buarque, 2003) to introduce the subject of fear. During the storytelling, we asked the children: “What are you afraid to do?”, “What were you afraid to do and what were you afraid to play when you were very small?”, “What games do you play nowadays?”. We explored the theme of the favela’s environment asking the children to draw what they saw and encountered in the trajectory between their house and CCCria and back.

Children drawing the trajectory from their houses to CCCria and back

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CECIP Table 2, Workshops with the children Groups of

Participants

Ages

Activities that took place in the workshops

children Group 1

10 children

3 and 4 y.o.

- Making nametags; - Reading stories about fear; - Drawings.

Group 2

10 children

3 and 4 y.o.

- Making nametags; - Reading stories about fear; - Play dough; - Talk and drawing of the house–daycare–house path.

Group 3

15 children

5 to 10 y.o.

- Making nametags; - Reading stories about fear; - Talk and drawing of the house–CCCria–house path; - Observation and conversation with the children.

2. Violence and insecurity in the community

The first UPP was installed in 2008 in Morro Santa Marta. The proposal was to change the confrontational approach that the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro established with the drug dealers that occupied the favelas of the state and the occasional invasions using heavy weaponry and other support equipment such as helicopters and the “caveirão3”. Even though Rio de Janeiro had, at the time, 33 UPPs who promote a permanent occupation of the communities and a decrease in armed conflicts (CECIP, 2010), this number is insufficient for the over one thousand favelas4 that exist in Rio and its outskirts. Many still suffer with incursions with many casualties for police officers, drug dealers and residents, which create situations of extreme violence affecting several regions of the city.

Before the installation of the UPP in October of 2010, Morro dos Macacos experienced a difficult situation because the drug dealers that controlled the area were rivals of the ones who 3

“Caveirão” – literally “big scull” – is the popular name given to the armored cars used by the BOPE of the Military Police in incursions in favelas of the capital and other cities in the state. The symbol of that squad is a skull pierced from top to bottom by a dagger.

4 http://oglobo.globo.com/infograficos/upps-favelas-rio/

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CECIP dominated neighboring regions. This generated intense disputes over territory and drug sales.

The relationship between the UPP officers and the residents is complex, permeated by different conflicts and tensions. After years of dealing with a violent Police, who in many cases disrespected residents’ individual and social rights, the residents still have police brutality in their memories and they find it hard to believe in the change and therefore approach this new one. In the previous research, an educator exemplified the suspicion toward the police:

The caveirão enters, brake things, mess with everything. They beat on a young man a lot; he was a workingman. I’ve seen the caveirão stealing beer, designer clothes and hitting.

Why doesn’t anyone take pictures then? No one has the courage. The children see. If the police come for peace, why do they act like this? How can I trust them, having two sons?

They hit on the girls. (CECIP, 2010) In spite of that, the police attempted to approach the residents through the children.

The 2010 research identified a strategy that the general coordination of the UPPs used to win over this population. They proposed activities involving music and martial arts classes, parties on Children’s Day, giving away candy, trips to soccer matches, among other things. Winning the children’s trust, they tried to getting closer to the adults as well. An educator from Morro dos Macacos expressed this relationship well: The children think it is really nice. The children in the daycare say, “I saw the police officer, he shook my hand”. And in the school too, “I talked to the guy from the BOPE”.

The children are excited about these figures in uniform that have guns; they’re used to it already, but they’re seeing a new approach from the police. The police used to enter shooting, attacking, and now they’re occupying the area, but there weren’t any shots fired in this occupation. (CECIP, 2010) Three years passed, and the residents and the UPP do not have a close relationship. In the research conducted in 2013, mothers and educators said that in the beginning of the implantation of the UPP, the police officers tried to please the children, but this strategy did not last long. The local UPP has very specific contours in spite of following the pattern of occupations in other favelas, with the prohibition of funk parties and the establishment of new rules for social conduct. The police no longer attempts to establish a relationship with the residents by offering courses and parties as they do in other communities; they also don’t make themselves open to approximation. When asked if the UPP promoted parties for the community, an educator commented: “Even if they did, nobody would come”. Another educator that lives in a favela with 12

CECIP a UPP in the greater Tijuca area stated that the police organizes many events and the residents usually attend them: “In my communities the police is closer to us”. We noticed that even though the public security program has the same principals and regulations, on a practical level the UPPs assume different configurations according to the local characteristics.

In the workshops made with the children in 2013, when asked about and stimulated them to draw their fears, both young and older children referred to be afraid of animals, such as spiders, centipedes, rats, cockroaches, snakes and monkeys. The younger ones talked about more abstract fears such as monsters, wolves, ghosts, “thing of mystery” and fear of the dark. In 2010, in participating in a similar activity, the children from Morro dos Macacos reported being afraid of helicopters, police and outlaws. In the current research, the younger children did not make reference to these elements related to urban violence, not even when provoked by the research team. While three boys around 9 years old drew, the following conversation took place: - What is bad here? – We asked.

- The police.

- The outlaws.

- What does the police do? – We asked.

- They hit residents that do bad things.

- What kind of bad thing? – We asked.

- Boyfriends that hit one another.

- Who is going to do/draw the police? – We asked.

- Me! - I want to do the outlaw!

- Are there still outlaws here? – We asked.

- There are!

This discussion about who would draw the outlaw and who would draw the police seemed to us to occur naturally, not stigmatized as it is for children that don’t live or haven’t lived this violent power dispute as intensely. In 2010, the residents said that before the arrival of the UPP, it was common to see 9 and 10 year-old children holding guns the very drug dealers offered.

Even though there are still drug dealers in the favela, the fact that they no longer carry guns and that there are no more shootings brought a sense of safety to the children. This reflected on their fears, which were no longer related directly to the confrontations.

The 2010 research showed that with the arrival of the UPP, some rules of conduct in the community, previously determined by the drug dealers, changed – and this would be the cause of new cases of theft and rape. The threat of punishment by the drug dealers gave the residents a 13

CECIP feeling of safety, in a way. In the 2013 research, the increase in thefts and rapes was brought up in the group of mothers and educators. “The shootings stopped, but there is still violence, rapists, muggers”, one mother said. One participant had her house robbed recently. Some of them blamed the crack addicts (“cracudos”), which now walk around freely in the community and would commit these robberies. But it was also mentioned that the “cracudos” are often blamed for thefts made by other residents. The mothers are preoccupied about child molestation, and they instruct them from an early age to protect themselves from these situations. They did not report any specific cases of sexual abuse in the group.

When asked about how the residents deal with these matters, especially thefts, they all said that the UPP doesn’t try to investigate these cases: “It won’t lead to anything”. Some mothers went to the police station to report the thefts, but they received no feedback about their accusations. Others stated that some of the police officers that work in the favela use drugs such as marijuana and cocaine, and they suspect that they have some sort of agreement with the drug dealers.

3. Mobility and game played by the children in Morro dos Macacos

Some families from Morro dos Macacos that participated in the discussion groups in 2010 said they did not let the children play outside or walk around the streets by themselves due to fear of violence. Sometimes they could stay in the rooftops, but it was considered a dangerous place. For the educators that participated in the research, some children that did walk around by themselves in the favela became less sensitive about the use of guns and ended up laughing at the ones who got scared during the shootings. The educators also said that teenagers would run to see what was happening when they heard gunfire, finding the situation thrilling: it was “like there was this adrenaline, like being in an action film”.

One mother said that when she was little, she used to play and walk around freely in Morro dos Macacos, but that now she does not let her 5-year-old son leave the house alone. She was sad that her son did not have friends in the community. Another participant also remembered that during her childhood she could play in the little court without care. When her daughter asked to ride her tricycle there, she became tense looking around, apprehensive that something bad could happen at any moment. She felt sad because it was “a wonderful place, but 14

CECIP you can’t play there anymore”. This sheltering given to the children was considered absolutely necessary, given the insufficient security. On the other hand, it was an immeasurable loss for the children, as one mother recalled: “In the end, the child doesn’t experience that game with a bat, playing tag, that we had when we were little”. Though all participants of the discussion groups agreed that there have always been drug trafficking in the community, they said that there didn’t used to be so many guns, and that the members of the community were respected, especially children. The drug dealers even hid their guns in the presence of children – a very different scenario than before the arrival of the UPP. In 2010, the children dealt with “guns, fights and drug users all the time, and that is a very powerful influence”, according to one mother. She reported that before the entry of the BOPE, “the children were playing with fictitious guns, pretending to be outlaws. They made wooden replicas of rifles and covered them with electrical tape, to make them black. They took flour to throw at people and they imitated bombs with paint”. Besides playing with toy guns, they took fruits from the forest near the community to throw on one another. The mothers seemed scared by the children’s creativity in building a toy so similar to the real gun. Educators and family members were bothered to see the children “dressed as” outlaws, even as a game.

Another educator said that the confrontation between the police and the drug dealers made the children violent and competitive: “Competition is an alarming thing in this community”. Violent situations among the children were frequent.

One educator had a different view towards the circulation of children. She said that the children played in the street even with violence in the favela. They used to stay in front of the house’s gate, played soccer in the schoolyard, went to the park (abandoned as it was) accompanied by an adult. She pointed out that the violence goes beyond the gunshots, “there’s the violence that children witness at home, in the way their parents speak, fighting and hitting the children”. But many members of that group disagreed with the statement that children could truly be comfortable in the street. They claimed that “cautious parents don’t let their children play outside, not even at the gate”.

Throughout the years, violence had a large impact on the possibility of children claiming public spaces. One week after the entrance of the police, possibly the first sign of change, children were already attending the street more. One resident of Morro dos Macacos concluded, in 2010: “The children are liking it a lot. The children are all in the streets, especially on 15

CECIP Fridays…!” They were asking their parents for bicycles and rollerblades so they could play in the street. In the first meeting between the BOPE and the community, the police officers said that their goal was to establish a tranquil environment so that “your children can take advantage of the public spaces”. The conveyed message as that the UPP would come to “retrieve the space for its true owners”.

When we returned to the community in 2013, we asked the educators and the mothers about the children’s favorite games. Initially, a statement came about that the children nowadays don’t play anymore because they prefer to stay in the computer at home. One mother reported that she was very worried about her 5-year-old son that wouldn’t stop gaming: “He is addicted to the computer”. Every time she asks the boy to stop, he starts to cry and it is very difficult to convince him to do something else. Another mother said that her child has the opposite problem, the boy is too agitated and he never stays in the house.

After these initial remarks about how children don’t play anymore, mothers and educators said that they like to fly kites and play with marbles in the street. One educator said that the children play hide-and-seek to date, like she did at that age. We observed in the CCCria boys playing “steal the flag” and the girls playing ring-around-the-rosies in the courtyard. During the workshop with the younger children, we asked if they played more in their houses or in the street. The girls said they liked to play doll in the house and on the rooftop. The boys said they played both in the house and in the street with toy cars and that they liked to play soccer. Thus, we noticed that even though the computer is part of the children’s lives, they still play with their colleagues, and often use the favela’s common spaces. The adults seemed to speak nostalgically, as if everything was different nowadays. Some old games are still played, though.

When we asked the mothers if the children played more outside or inside the house, they said it depends on the family. One mother said that she doesn’t like to let her son play in the street because it’s dangerous and she prefers that he play at home. To her, the risk is of the child falling and hurting himself. Another mother said “there is danger everywhere, even in social networks”.

During the discussion an idea came up; before the installation of the UPP, parents did not let their children play in the street because of shootings and the circulation of motorcycles and cars at high speed. When the children were in the streets they had a curfew. At that time, the house was considered a safe haven, for there were many shootings. One educator said that the daycare was in the middle of the conflict and the children were terrified. In her perspective, the situation 16

CECIP changed with the arrival of the UPP: “Now it’s better. It’s calmer and there are no more gunshots”. She also noticed a change in the very young children’s games: “All they did was ‘pow pow’ [gunfire sounds] and they don’t do it anymore.” According to the educator, the children nibbled crackers into gun shapes. “With the arrival of the UPP, the children are having more fun and everyone experiences more freedom”. Some mothers said that there was an increase in the number of thefts and rapes with the arrival of the UPP. For that reason, they no longer leave their children home alone. In summary, when the parents are absent, the street became a safer environment than the house.

We observed the movement of Morro dos Macacos during lunchtime. We noticed that many children went to school accompanied by their older siblings. One girl was with her younger brother and tried to walk ahead of him, complaining when he walked faster than her.

Along the way, they met and talked to classmates, neighbors and other children. In the meeting with the mothers we asked if currently the children go to school by themselves. Some mothers said that they can go to school by themselves, that they see no fault in that. They also let the children go to the park or to the Vila Olímpica unaccompanied by adults. In some moments, the group was divided in the matter of whether or not it was dangerous to let the children circulate by themselves in the favela.

During the activity we asked the children about which places they liked to go to in the favela. They mentioned CCCria, the town square, the “Brizolão” school’s yard, where the boys play soccer, the Vila Isabel Park and the Vila Olímpica. The children go to the recently restored park with their family and their school. They like to see the monkeys in the trees and to play in the pool at the Vila Olímpica. On the way from their house to the CCCria, they drew motorcycles that pass by in the street and the CEACA-Vila’s bus. This vehicle takes the children from their houses to the projects that the institution offers in and out of the community.

Therefore, changes occurred in the circulation and in the games played by the children in the favela along these three years. This is perhaps the most significant result of the achievements of the presence of the UPP in Morro dos Macacos.

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CECIP

Photo of Recanto do Trovador Park in Vila Isabel

5. The changes and investments in the favela and the unsolved problems

When we conducted the research in 2010, the residents of Morro Santa Marta and Morro dos Macacos had the perspective that with the entry of the UPP, there could be improvements in the infrastructure of these favelas. Santa Marta was waiting for sanitation and improvement in wooden houses, for those were still unsolved problems after two years with UPP. The main problems listed in Morro dos Macacos were the lack of sanitation, accumulation of garbage, rats, poorly kept stairs and housing. It is interesting to notice how people expected the UPP would solve problems that had nothing to do with security. In Morro dos Macacos people were overly hopeful that urbanization and public services would reach the favela, as we observed in a community leader’s speech:

The garbage is a problem. In front of the daycare there is exposed untreated sewage.

CEDAE says that the plumbing is too old and they never had the pulse to change it.

Maybe now we can have a glimpse of improvement, since now it’ll probably be of interest to the government to make these improvements happen. But it should have been done a long time ago, the daycare children have to jump over the sewage and they arrive in the daycare with dirty feet. The garbage is thrown on the ground, there are no dumpsters, the garbage was thrown in front of the daycare and it became infested with rats. (CECIP, 18

CECIP 2010) In spite of the resident’s desire that the UPP resulted in other public services and improvements for the community, in 2013 the main problems listed at the time were not solved.

In the activities conducted in the current research the children from Morro dos Macacos reported a lot of garbage in the favela and “dirty water” (sewage) and animals (cockroaches and rats), including inside the houses due to lack of sanitation and garbage pile-up. The children seem not only to perceive the problem, but also to know what needs to be done: “Look, when you leave you can’t throw garbage on the street”. One girl chose to draw a garbage can with different colors – a reference to recycling. There is currently a successful recycling project in the favela, but it is insufficient to solve all the necessities of this area.

The children also come in contact with other animals, such as dogs, cats and monkeys.

While we waited outside the daycare to do an activity with the children, two boys around ten years old were playing in a shopping cart when a teacher passed by and reprimanded them, saying that the cart was used for garbage disposal and that they could catch skin diseases. Then, one of the boys told us that he’d had skin problems before, which we imagined were due to coming in contact with garbage. The 2010 research mentioned diseases caused by insalubrities: “Lack of sanitation. This is not a model community. It could be better if the government sector responsible for this would value it. There are open sewers, the child picks up a doll from the dirty ground; the community is very dirty. This gives the children diseases”, one educator reported.

According to the mothers, during these three years there weren’t many investments in urbanization or new services. To the educators and the mothers, “it hasn’t changed, it’s the same” and that “the only thing that changed was the police officers”. They complained about differences between Morro dos Macacos and other favelas with UPPs that had more benefits.

Then they recalled some improvements that occurred in the area, such as the construction of a small town square where previously was a swimming pool used by the drug dealers, and the restoration of the park that had been abandoned for years. Though the children do not go as often to the town square, the park became a reference for the entire community, used by children, adolescents and adults. The educators reported that children from other places in the neighborhood also played there. This didn’t happen before the arrival of the UPP, because rival 19

CECIP gangs dominated the different communities in the region. There are new public areas that were created or reformed, enabling children to occupy these living areas.

The mothers also recalled two new projects: a preparatory course for the job market, funded by Coca-Cola, and the Vila Olímpica, which offers several sports and on weekends they open the pool for the children, who usually play there. Two mothers took the prep course. They seemed content with the quality of it and were surprised to see people from other parts of the city coming to take it.

In 2010, the research participants were worried about the possibility of increasing the cost of living in the favela, generated by the regularization of services such as electricity, water, cable TV and Internet. They always took advantage of these services through illegal connections (“gato”), at a very low price or for free. As one resident of Morro dos Macacos explained: “The UPP will bring an increase in the cost of living. Here in the community we don’t pay for electricity, we don’t pay for TV, we don’t pay for water. The money comes in clean. Now that they are improving the community, they will also increase the cost”. This was also criticized by the residents of Santa Marta when talking about the UPP – especially for the expensive electricity bill.

The 2013 research reveals that the cost of living increased for the residents of Morro dos Macacos that weren’t proprietors of their homes. According to one resident, the “rent became gold”. There was a rise of the real estate prices: “a house worth 20 thousand turned into 40” and “the rent used to cost 150 reais and it went up to 400 reais”. The mothers said they still don’t pay electrical bills, but that the companies are installing the meters and they should start paying.

According to the residents, nobody left the community due to the increase in the cost of living.

People used to leave because of the violence before the UPP. After the installation, previous residents moved back to Morro dos Macacos.

There is a strong perception among the participants of the discussion groups that the arrival of the UPP enabled better circulation of non-residents in Morro dos Macacos and its surroundings. It also improved the residents’ circulation in other spaces. One mother stated that she was no longer afraid of inviting friends and family to her house: “When we invite people we feel responsible too. What if something happens? Now we no longer have that preoccupation”.

When asked about how people picture Morro dos Macacos and if this vision changed after the arrival of the UPP, mothers and educators expressed different opinions. Most of the 20

CECIP educators that participated in the discussion did not live in the community and have the impression that the image improved. Many stated that they feared entering the favela before the UPP: “I’m not from here and I didn’t come near here”. Nowadays, they can work and walk around the favela normally. On the other hand, the mothers, all residents, believe that there’s still a lot of preconceived notions surrounding favelas and that the press only reports the bad thing that happen there. One mother said that she was leaving the market and she asked the taxi driver if he would take her to the favela. He said he would, but when he saw the entrance of the hill accessing the favela he gave up. The same thing happened to us when we went to the community to do the research.

Final remarks

Analyzing interviews with children, mothers and educators that live or work in Morro dos Macacos, we gathered some positive and negative aspects related to the entrance of the UPP in the favela. The mothers and the educators complimented the variety of projects available for children and young adults and the presence of schools close by and in Morro dos Macacos: “The only ones who don’t do anything are the ones whose parents want them to”, one educator said.

One mother commented: “my daughter doesn’t have spare time anymore”, because she takes courses and participates in extracurricular activities. The favela also has newly reformed leisure areas such as Recanto do Trovador Park and Vila Olímpica, both frequently attended by children and adults from several places, including non-residents.

With the arrival of the UPP the circulation of adults and children in and out of the community improved, as well as the presence of people that couldn’t be there before. The residents feel that they are experiencing more freedom. Another positive aspect is that the children that participated in the research did not report matters associated to violence. This is a consequence of the arrival of the UPP, which reduces the routines of extreme violence that affected the children and their imagination.

Among the negative aspects is the reoccurring matter of the lack of public services, which did not arrive or improve with the arrival of the UPP. Children and adults pointed out garbage, lack of sanitation and problems caused by it, common to almost all favelas in the city. With the decrease in armed conflicts that frightened the children in 2010, they now fear rats and 21

CECIP cockroaches, the effects of environmental problems. There was also an increase in the number of thefts among residents, which live the fear of violence and sexual abuse, consequences of the end of the strict rules imposed by the drug dealers. The arrival of the UPP caused an increase in the cost of rent and housing. The relationship between the police officers and the residents can also be considered a negative aspect, for the distance doesn’t allow a friendly atmosphere to prosper, making the relationship hard and turbulent.

The mothers and the educators presented some suggestions to improve the children’s lives and the community’s lives as a whole. Though the community has a clinic, which offers basic care, pediatrics and Obstetrics-gynecology, they miss specialized doctors to treat them in the favela, An educator, former resident of Morro dos Macacos, suggests that on Sundays part of the main street in the favela be closed to be used for leisure, as is common in other places in the city. Both mothers and educators spoke of the necessity to reeducate parents to take their children to participate in the projects, for most of them get lazy.

We noticed that the UPP brought evident improvements to the children’s lives. They now feel safe to walk around and play in the alleys, streets and free areas in the favela.

Nevertheless, there are many challenges that cannot be left aside. After all the quality of life pertains not only to security, but also includes housing, education, good health support, sanitation and cultural options; matters which require more investments in the area. The police’s relationship with the residents also needs work so that there can be a trustful and secure environment in the favela.

References

BUARQUE, C. Chapeuzinho amarelo. Rio de Janeiro: Jose Olympio, 2003.

CECIP - CENTRO DE CRIAÇÃO DE IMAGEM POPULAR. O impacto sobre a primeira infância das políticas de segurança pública e iniciativas comunitárias em comunidades urbanas de baixa renda. Rio de Janeiro, 2010.

CECIP - CENTRO DE CRIAÇÃO DE IMAGEM POPULAR. As políticas públicas de segurança e de urbanização das favelas do Rio de Janeiro e atenção dada às crianças pequenas.

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CECIP Rio de Janeiro, 2011.

EMBERLEY, E. Vai embora, grande monstro verde. S達o Paulo: Brinque Book, 2009.

GUTMAN, A. Os pesadelos de Lisa, Rio de Janeiro: Cosac Naif, 2010.

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