Actually, thought Maria das Graças Viana, she had already lost everything. Then it got worse again. When she ran out of food after the outbreak of the pandemic, she first asked her neighbor for help - and when she couldn't help either, she queued in front of the community center. Queuing for a hot meal and a grocery package. Viana, 41 years old, has lived in Paraisópolis, one of the two largest favelas in the Brazilian metropolis of São Paulo, for a quarter of a century. She is a single mother of four children and says of herself: “I know what poverty is.” But she has never experienced such hardship as last year. For the first time in her life, she had to ask for food. Viana pauses and brushes a strand of her straightened, dyed hair from her face."I was ashamed."
Tjerk Brühwiller
Correspondent for Latin America based in São Paulo.
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The pandemic may be a challenge for the whole world, but it is particularly big for Brazil's poor district. Paraisópolis, Viana's Favela, is a labyrinth. Narrow, often multi-storey brick houses are lined up one after the other. Keeping your distance - is impossible here. The residents live next door to each other, there is no running water, the sewage runs downhill in the rivulets, and the alleys are damp. Here in particular, a well-thought-out plan would have been necessary to combat the pandemic. But the authorities didn't have one. This makes one number all the more surprising: Paraisópolis has had fewer than 60 deaths so far, and that for a population of 100,000. Paraisópolis also stands for the success of initiative. Nobody is waiting for the state here anyway. The residents of the Brazilian favelas have learned to be on their own.This can also be an advantage in a crisis.
Street presidents as mediators
And so Paraisópolis benefits from itself, from its own civic organizations and from good cohesion. When the first corona cases were reported in São Paulo about a year ago, the organization "G10 das Favelas" called for it. It unites resident associations and social entrepreneurs from the ten largest favelas, but also from smaller slums. One of their most successful ideas was that of the so-called street presidents; Volunteers who are in close contact with the population in their street blocks and who know who is sick and where. They report the cases to the health authorities and advise those affected. The street presidents are also responsible for organizing food parcels if necessary and fighting rumors. The system has proven itself during the pandemic, in Paraisópolis as well as in many other favelas.
The poor neighborhoods are hit hard by the economic consequences of the pandemic. 14 million Brazilians live in a favela. In Paraisópolis, 90 percent of the residents only have a monthly income of the equivalent of 230 euros or less. A third of them are considered poor with a per capita income of less than 80 euros. Those who work often have no contract and therefore no security. Many already lost their financial livelihood in the first weeks of the pandemic, when public and economic life in Brazil largely came to a standstill. But it also affected many employees with permanent contracts: domestic servants, nannies, cleaning staff, waiters, drivers, bouncers - all those who get a salary that is difficult to get by in São Paulo.From one day to the next, thousands were no longer needed. Surveys show: Half of all Brazilians from the two lowest income brackets have lost half of their income or even more. Until the end of last year, millions of Brazilians received direct aid of the equivalent of up to 100 euros every month from the government, including Viana, albeit briefly. It is unclear whether there will be further help in the future. The state budget was already under strain before the pandemic.It is unclear whether there will be further help in the future. The state budget was already under strain before the pandemic.It is unclear whether there will be further help in the future. The state budget was already under strain before the pandemic.
In any case, the amount was not enough; For 100 euros a person in São Paulo can buy the most important basic foodstuffs. And so the citizens are waiting for a warm meal in front of the community center in Paraisópolis this early morning. By noon the queue grows to several hundred hungry people, and by the end of the day there will be 800 meals. Mothers and old people have priority, many know each other and their stories. One and a half million meals have been distributed to favela residents since the pandemic began. In the meantime, however, private donations have declined - not all of them can be served anymore.