Category Archives: CAFOD Westminster

“Sometimes it calls upon a generation to be great – you can be that generation”. I’m looking at the CAFOD t-shirt with that great saying by Mandela and thinking over that past few days I have met the most amazing community leaders who are truly inspiring people

Marinaise is one of these inspiring people. She has been instrumental in the conversion of Favela Parc du Guard into a flats for 300 people, now known as just Parc du Guard.

Marinaise explained how they used to live and how they struggled over many years to get a proper roof over their heads and a community centre.

CAFOD’s partners APOIO (Brazilian for “support”) have trained and help mobilise many like Marinaise to fight against an unjust system where the poor are discriminated against again and again.

Experiencing so much pain

I also met other amazing community leaders working for change, who have experienced so much pain and are working to bring about change, such as Janaina Cristina da Silva who as a child selling sweets on the streets of Brasilia.

She came to Sao Paulo with her mother when she was 16 years old. However her mother was not around for long and soon she had to survive on her own in a big city without a home.

Janaina started to attend meetings of the homeless movement and got involved in campaigning for change.

She is now 20-years-old, has a roof over her head after years of unimaginable hardship, and is employed by CAFOD’s partners Apoio working in a night shelter for the homeless in Sao Paulo.

Janaina said in tears: “Before I couldn’t even dare to dream, but since being involved with Apoio, I have started to dream of a future.” She also likes English music and shares my own love of the group The Smiths!

Posted by TonyS

Over the last few days we´ve been on an amazing trip to visit some of the indigeonus peoples of Roraima state in the Amazon.

Having flown all night from San Paulo in the South to Boa Vista in northern Brazil, we embarked on a ten-hour trip by road towards the border of Venezuela.

We loaded two big trucks with three large barrels of fuel in the back, for we would not see a petrol station for many days. We then set off on a day-long bumpy journey through farmland, forest and mountains and over a few bridges that reminded me of an Indiana Jones film!

Indigenous communities such as the Materuca have lived in these areas for many many centuries but, since the arrival of the Portuguese 500 years ago, they have suffered many years of persecution and murder.

Tribes wiped out

In fact, the number of Indians in Brazil has fallen by 93% since the arrival of the Europeans. Unfortunately this has continued into the present day with, on average, one tribe being wiped out every two years.

CAFOD works through a partner organisation called Conselho Indigena de Roraima (CIR), which supports indigenous people in the state of Roraima (approximately 36,000 Indian people) with issues such as land rights, education, health, environmental protection, and self-sufficiency projects.

The first community we visit is in a place called Surumu, which is a school and training centre for the Macuxi people of the area.

We are welcomed by community leaders and young people who finally celebrated legal ownership of this land under Brazilian law in 2005. This was as a result of many years struggle for justice by the community, supported by the church.

We then learned with horror of the constant intimidation the community has experienced at he hand of thugs employed by powerful farming firms, who would like to use the land.

We looked in shock at the remains of the school and church mission which had been burned down during a violent attack by 200 thugs last year. The gang also violently attacked Indians and clergy.

We were told the farming companies are very powerful and have friends in high places in both the media and the government, so can get away with such awful activities.

Peace-loving

The Macuxi people are a peace-loving people, who legally have a right to their land and work hard to develop it in an environmentally-friendly way. They are training their young people in the Surumu school to do the same.

The community make us very welcome, showing us around their enviromentally-friendly farm, and then giving us dinner which includes beans, rice and fruit juice. They then help me put up my hammock and mosquito net ready for my night under the stars.

Before bed we are treated to a cultural night of singing and dancing by the students of Surumu. There are approximately 40 teenagers taking part, from many indigeonus communities in the state.

They all thank CAFOD supporters for their solidarity and support in their many years of persececution and experience of injustice.

As I go to bed in my hammock under the stars, a Macuxi chief called Ivaldo invites me to come for a swim and wash in the river tomorrow morning.

I am not worried about the mosquitos – instead my mind contemplates how and why the rich and powerful can get away with attacking such a beautiful people, and burning down their church and school.

Posted by TonyS

We had to get up early this morning for a very long and bumpy drive through the hills and countryside to farm lands which belong to the Mucuxi indigeonus peoples.

Our destination is a village called Maturuca, which is the main centre for the Mucuxi peoples in the area known as Terra Indigina Raposa Serra Do Sol (which translates as “land of the fox on the sunny hill”).

As we approach the village, we experience the most wonderful of welcomes – it is like the scene out of an old film. There are lines of smilling children in traditional dress waiting for our arrival, all singing and dancing.

The group of us are encircled, then led holding hands and in song to a meeting place called a Maloca, where we are formally welcomed by the Tuxaua chiefs called Ivaldo and Jacira.

They formally thank us for our solidarity in their struggle for justice and our support in reclaiming their land back in 1991, and we are then invited to individually introduce ourselves through our translator and group leader Cica. We receive plenty of applause from the numerous smiling faces!

Community co-operative

After the welcome we are invited to sit at a table of honour and are served with a lovely lunch of local vegetables, meat and fruit.

We are joined at lunch by a young consolata missionary priest called Father Mario Campos, who lives with the community here at Maturuca.

We are then taken on a tour of their community, which includes a co-operative, where people are able to sell their goods and buy others at cost price.

They also take us to their new fish farm which was manually dug out of the ground by the whole community. They are currently learning how to breed fish for extra food.

They also have a small school, whose head teacher Rosilda da Silva was trained at Surumu and is very proud to be able to teach in her own community, having faced years of violence, violation and oppression from those in Brazil who hate the indigeonus people.

Once again, we are to sleep in hammocks in beautiful surroundings, do our washing in buckets of cold water, and enjoy another cultural evening of entertainment – truly a simple life!

Posted by TonyS