MEETING OF TERRITORIES AND STRUGGLES
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.
Carlos André do Nascimento Silva (45), better known as Cazé, was born in São Gonçalo, in the Neves neighborhood, and has a degree in law. His political education began in a group of the Catholic Church's Youth Pastoral, a very common movement in the 1980s. After having gone through some professional experiences in offices, he arrived at Redes da Maré in 2009, for a position in the financial sector that was in formation at the time. Until then, he knew the territory only by the daily route he took along Av. Brasil.
At that time, Cazé was an intern and traveled all around Rio. “I had no idea of the huge amount of strong stories and how much powerful people dominated this territory,” he says. It was the first time he entered Maré and what impacted him the most was the size and structure of local businesses, in addition to the “imaginary barrier of those who live and those who do not live in Maré”. Despite the political training he started still in his youth, before working at Redes da Maré, he did not know the impacts of the work carried out by a social organization: “over time I came to understand the positive impact they have on the structure of the place and on the lives of people. In addition to constantly provoking and demanding the State to carry out its legal role”.
Although the racial debate is always present in Redes da Maré's projects, it was in a provocation made by Cazé, in an internal meeting in 2019, that the idea of the Black House of Maré emerged. The objective of the House is to create a space for theoretical-methodological and political training to work on ethnic-racial issues in Maré, as a way of confronting the structural racism that characterizes Brazilian society. "I understood that it was time to suggest the permanent application of this debate so that it becomes broader (...) Hopefully, in a while, new black leaders in Maré will be formed to promote debates to confront structural and recreational racism, to promote the health of black men, and other important agendas on this topic.”
During the ‘Maré says NO to Coronavirus’ campaign, Cazé worked in the management of projects and donations we received from individuals and companies for the purchase and distribution of food baskets, safety and sanitation material. “Like everyone else, I was frightened by the uncertainties of the future, paranoid about my health, and trying to cope with an urgent demand with lightness and commitment. Thinking about transformation from the collective perspective is the possible way for us to go through this moment”, he comments.
Cazé draws attention to the work of the Normal Space and the delivery of letters by the children of Maré to the Court of Justice of Rio de Janeiro as actions that well represent Redes da Maré's journey of thinking about structural changes that provoke power public to fulfill its role of taking care of the city. For the future, he hopes that the city will become less aggressive and more welcoming, “I hope that joy will return, and that it will be transformed for the better and be extended to everyone. May we value and have more affection for life and for the other.”
