ACT Alliance

by Sean Hawkey

Taking drugs, stealing and getting into trouble didn’t endear Sergio Longo to the string of relatives who attempted to look after him, and when he was no longer welcome he went to live on the streets. He wasn’t alone. An estimated 14,000 people sleep rough in Sao Paolo and some of them don’t survive the experience. ACT member Christian Aid supports projects that help people living on the streets of Sao Paolo to get employment, housing, education and health care. They do so by recycling the city’s rubbish.

When Sergio came to the Gaspar Garcia Centre for Human Rights he was ill, desperate, hungry and homeless. He was offered the chance to earn a meal by helping to separate rubbish on a recycling project.

Sergio earned his meal and stayed on at the recycling project. With support, he regained his health and became a respected leader on the project, building up knowledge of the recycling industry. Today he is the president of a huge city-centre recycling cooperative that provides employment for many homeless people who arrive at the gates just as he did several years ago.

As well as providing employment through the recycling projects, the centre helps people to access the education and health care they are entitled to, and works on housing rights with squatter communities and the homeless.

ACT Alliance General Secretary John Nduna visited the projects during a recent trip to Brazil and met with Sergio and his colleagues in the recycling projects.

Nduna praised the work saying that “this project, as well as providing community-based employment, helps people understand their rights, and that really makes lasting changes in the lives of people affected by poverty and injustice”.

“Urban areas are swelling with new populations. Many are landless rural workers who migrate to the cities in search of a better life and many are born on the margins of cities. The numbers of poor people in urban areas are increasing and many of them are unaware of their rights: their human rights, housing rights, education rights and employment rights. This work really challenges why people are poor and marginalised, and supports a new future for many of them in practical ways”.

“Listening to the life stories of people here, stories of real transformation and development, has been a truly humbling experience”.

The projects are being considered by Brazilian authorities as a replicable model for other areas of Sao Paolo and other cities.

Projects from the Gaspar Garcia Centre for Human Rights appeared in the ACT Alliance launch video

See the website for the recycling project Coopere-centro reciclagem.