EXPANDING POSSIBILITIES
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.
Myllene Fortunato (27), journalist and assistant coordinator at Casa das Mulheres da Maré, is another ‘born and raise’ that works at our Redes da Maré! She lived at favela Rubens Vaz as a child and in Parque União until last year. She used to say that her trajectory started in the organization, because like so many young ‘mareenses’, she was a student of our High School Preparatory Course and of the Pre-College Course, guaranteeing access to the expansion of school possibilities and professional qualification.
Dodging historical difficulties is common for many women living in slums. Myllene deals with this reality on a daily basis with her work at the Women’s House of Maré - a space designed by Redes to promote the role of women in the region. “I believe that the main meaning of working in a space like the Women’s House is the welcoming we are able to give to women. Not only when they come with their demands for care, but also when they pass by the house and just want to talk. It is knowing that we have in Maré a place of exchange that works on several fronts, contributing to the protagonism of these ‘mareenses’”.
During the pandemic, Myllene also worked closely with women who made a difference in the lives of many. She was part of the “Weaving Masks and Care” action that embraced the Income Generation front of the campaign ‘Maré says NO to Coronavirus’. “Having participated in this front and being involved with these 54 seamstresses from Maré, made me see a potential that even I had not realized in myself. The pandemic made us more sensitive and we started to be more careful with others and these women taught me a lot with their life stories.” These 54 women from Maré produced more than 200 thousand masks that were distributed in the territory.
"Not only today, but always, Redes is fundamental for the population of Maré". For Myllene, the organization ends up assuming demands such as income generation, education, culture, which should be supplied in the territory through specific public policies and in this pandemic period this was very evident. “This articulation of delivering food baskets, generating jobs for women to produce masks, for example, was the salvation for many families, where in many of them, all people were unemployed”.
For the post-pandemic, Myllene hopes that we can continue with all the learning that this moment has brought us. “We have never taken the act of taking care of ourselves, and especially of others, so seriously. Even though I know that inside a slum it is almost impossible to continue to follow through with all the recommendations. But we managed to reinvent ourselves.”
