PRODUCTING KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCES
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.
Camila Barros (33) is Arthur and Guilherme's mother, social worker, graduated and master at Universidade Federal Fluminense and doctoral student at UFRJ - the first person in the family to enter a public university. The resident of Mutuá, in São Gonçalo, met Redes da Maré in an academic space, at the Center for Teaching and Research on Favelas and Popular Spaces (NEPEFE), and in 2019 she became part of the team of the axis Right to Public Security and Access to Justice, where she currently coordinates the knowledge production front.
“Any production of knowledge is only valid if it makes sense in reality” is one of the reflections made by the social worker who monitors and systematizes the production of data in the important Public Security Bulletins. Before coming to Redes da Maré, Camila worked in the social assistance policy of São Gonçalo and Duque de Caxias and also in the LGBT Citizenship Center, in Niterói. She also had a very close relationship with the Homeless Workers Movement – MTST, from an occupation that took place in São Gonçalo.
The first thing Camila reports that she saw in Maré when she arrived here was people. "Many people!". Commerce, children, motorcycles, fairs, “the favela never stops. All the time there is a diversity of people trying to make a living and survive in different ways.” The possibility of learning, producing knowledge based on the reality of the territory and being able to measure positive results is what motivates the researcher to work at Maré. “I think that the public security policy cuts across all other policies and all dimensions of the life of those who live the daily life of Maré”, she adds.
At the beginning of the campaign ‘Maré says NO to Coronavirus’, Camila worked on scheduling calls for the delivery of food baskets and cleaning kits, and responding to the demands of the WhatsApp channel, created at that time to communicate with residents; she also participated in the delivery of food baskets and social interviews with families. “The campaign gave me the opportunity to get to know other Maré and have the real measurement of the impacts of the pandemic, not only on health, but on all dimensions of people's lives”. For Camila, the campaign also showed how much collective work has incredible power and Redes da Maré was a giant in this process.
But most of the weaver's energy was dedicated to the production of more than 34 editions of the ‘Eyes on Corona Bulletin’, which presents data and analysis on the behavior of the virus and the impacts of the pandemic in Maré. “The newsletter process was perhaps one of the biggest challenges for me. The pandemic is extremely dynamic and content production also needed to be.”
"I think that, going forward, we will be able to put a milestone for Redes before and after the campaign." For Camila, Redes da Maré was already a reference institution in the planning and execution of various actions in the city's favelas. The community base and the methodology that involves the production of knowledge, mobilization, assistance and political influence is the institution's great differential, according to her. But the pandemic and consequently the responses that were created to minimize the impacts on residents, made Redes even bigger, not only in terms of accessing a greater number of people, but also in terms of mobilizing and strengthening the institution's ties with the territory.
