BELOGING AND ARTICULATION
This is the column Who Makes Redes, a compilation of the stories of people who build our organization and who work hard every day to do what we do best: actions and projects for residents of Maré. Learn about these stories, trajectories, experiences and the history of Redes da Maré itself - and how this work and the challenges faced since the pandemic have transformed them.
Henrique Gomes (38) is a social worker in training at the UFRJ Social Service School. Pisces with the moon in Gemini, as he asked us to record. Despite being from Rio, he is the son of two ‘Paraíbanos’, from Massaranduba, like so many residents of Maré. He was a student of the Pre-College Course in 2009 and has always been interested in research and music, which strengthened an important capacity for territorial articulation, representing a lot of Henrique's work at Redes da Maré and throughout the territory.
Since accessing Redes da Maré through the course, there have been many experiences: among others, he was a distributor, articulator and distribution coordinator for the newspaper Maré of News, production assistant and producer at Cultural Canva and ECOM, articulator of the projects ‘Maré sem Fronteiras’ and ‘Maré que Queremos’, researcher at the Memories and Identities Nucleus, and is now coordinator of the Safe Isolation front of the Heath Connection project.
The first memories and feelings about the territory are about belonging: “a sharing relationship, with neighbors, friends, relatives. The feeling of being with someone, of the community relationship is very strong. My first memories are of collective care”. Therefore, says Henrique, it was very natural to work at Redes da Maré, as it was an important place for the training process as a resident.
For the articulator, the possibility of experiencing the impact of the work of Redes da Maré is remarkable. From the production of data, for example, it is possible to perceive the local change, the improvement in life and the direct impact of the organization's actions on the lives of the residents, who are their own neighbors, friends and family. "It's a direct impact on community."
Henrique also accompanies the coordination of the Territorial Development axis of Redes, and highlights: “It is important to think about this territory development, and in a structuring way, which is how we think about the axis. Thinking about territorial development is thinking about a change in the structure of basic sanitation, education, and other fronts.”
In the ‘Maré says NO to Coronavirus’ campaign, he began working on the distribution of hot meals for the Flavors and Care project, collaborating with the daily distribution of three hundred meals in the drug use scenes of Maré; he also worked on a new model for attending to Normal Space, distributing alcohol gel and masks to residents of Maré and strengthening communication in the territory, with the collage of posters and articulation with residents' associations.
Henrique concludes by highlighting the importance of Redes da Maré's work in giving visibility to issues that have always been invisible to public authorities and society. “Above all this data production, this mobilization, articulation with public services, thinking about this access of Maré residents to these services and rights”.
