Normal Space

The Normal Space (NS) is the first reference space on drugs in favela territories in Brazil. The project is an innovative experience, originating from civil society, for the development of new care methodologies and the design of public policies for the homeless population and/or people who use drugs in favela contexts, armed violence, and systematic barriers to access to rights.

NS has also become a reference in the international context of harm reduction by expanding the working methodology with this public beyond the perspective centered on medicalized care, basic health care, and assistance, including a territorial, community, and right to the city dimension.

The result of three years of research and intervention alongside scenes of crack and other drug use, located on Flávia Farnese Street and Avenida Brasil, Redes da Maré inaugurated, in Nova Holanda, in May 2018, the Normal Space, a harm reduction reference center. In 2022, the project gained its own space at Rua 17 de Fevereiro, 237 - Parque Maré.

The main objective of the project is to set a positive agenda on harm reduction practices and care policies, starting from the protagonism of the people who frequent the space and from the territory itself.

Through coexistence and the articulation of a wide care network in the territory, Normal Space works on the autonomy of the individual and care in freedom through the promotion of self-care, income generation, access to cultural spaces and other leisure regions in the city, and access to public policies.

Normal Space is an inter-sectoral facility and follows the methodological path of Redes da Maré, involving knowledge production, training, articulation, intervention, and political advocacy. Its actions also involve all thematic and transversal axes of the institution: Health; Education; Urban and Socio- environmental Rights; Public Security and Access to Justice; Art, Culture, Memories and Identities; Racial Equity and Gender Equity.

WHY IS THE SPACE CALLED NORMAL?

Carlos Roberto Nogueira, also known as “Normal”, was a local leader of the drug use scene on Flávia Farnese St, in Maré. Since the beginning of the Redes project in the area, in 2015, Normal has helped the team to build links with the scene and consolidate its work in that space. Charismatic, talented and extroverted, Normal was a concrete example of the complexities, desires and powers that cross the trajectories of people living on the streets.

In January 2018, while the space was being prepared to be inaugurated, Normal died from a stray bullet at Flávia Farnese St. He was 32 years old. The name Normal Space was given, then, as a tribute to Carlos and all the people who, like him, had and still have their lives marked by the violence produced by the war on drugs.

The name Normal also intends to claim new perspectives on people who use drugs and/or who are homeless, serving as a constant reminder of the right to be “different” combined with the desire of people who are systematically stigmatized by society to be seen as "normal”.

Flickr Normal Space

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