FUNDRAISER FOR THE SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF WZ RIO

UPDATE 22/04/2020:

In this final stage of the campaign, we would like to reinforce the call for solidarity and update you on the progress of last week's work by the Teia de Solidariedade da Zona Oeste ( https://bit.ly/TeiaSolidaridadeZO ).


So far, more than 264 baskets of dry and fresh food have been transferred to the community. Our network is growing, it’s been already several threads weaving collaborative relationships with small farmers in the region and in the Rio de Janeiro mountains region. They donated fresh food from their gardens to compose the food baskets delivered to women and their families. Some seamstresses have contacted Teia ZO and are passing on part of the money invested in the sale of masks for the purchase of baskets.

With all this work of weaving the network to bring food to families, seeking to support the maintenance of their lives, what the current government does not, we have still sought to debate social assistance policies and food sovereignty in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro, a region historically neglected by the city's segregation policies.


Finally, we have also remained steadfast in mapping the demands of women who are part of the Popular Collective of Women in the West Zone, which organized the campaign, as well as of the families and precarious workers in the region.


Our struggle is urgent and structural!
“É na luta que a gente se encontra”! It´s on the struggle that we found one another! 


CAMPAIGN: 

United, several women organized in different collectives, organizations and institutions of the West Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro have initiated a campaign to amplify the collection of basic goods like food, water and cleaning products, as well as personal hygiene items, to the families of the neighbourhoods and favelas of this region of the city. The contribution received by the groups will be directed mainly to the neighbourhoods of Sepetiba; Santa Cruz; Campo Grande / Bosque dos Caboclos; Pedra de Guaratiba; and Vargem Grande.

You can follow the updates of this campaign in our FB: https://bit.ly/TeiaSolidaridadeZO 

The political, social and economic context in Brazil 

Immersed, in recent years, in a social, political and economic crisis, the most impoverished population in the country has suffered from increasing unemployment, lack of social protection, as well as institutional blows, waves of privatization of public services, fiscal adjustment reforms, and the militarization of life. Thus, inequality in Brazil, historically established since colonization, and continued by developmental and modernization projects, currently reaches a new level of precarization of life and an increase in the privileges of the elite.

Since the arrival of the COVID-19 epidemic crisis, the Brazilian population has been threatened by fake news and criminal pronouncements by President Bolsonaro, who insists on denying the gravity of the situation, while protecting the interest of the colonial capitalist elite to have (re)productive workers for the success of the capital.

This situation has demanded more organization from black women, women living in the periphery and favelas, indigenous women, working women coming from rural areas and the informal sector, sex workers and LBTs against the concentration of wealth, structural racism and the oppression of gender and sexuality.



Why the West Zone? 

The State of Rio, in particular the capital, is at the top of the records of infection and deaths caused by COVID-19.  The  West Zone (ZO) of Rio de Janeiro concentrates the major part of the population in the city, hosting also some of the most populated neighbourhoods in Brazil. At the same time, it also concentrates the worst HDIs (Human Development Index) in Rio. Therefore, there is a special alert for this area of ​​the city.

In this context, families who were already in social vulnerability or who lived from informal economic activities are no longer able to maintain their survival by themselves. There is already a lack of drinking water, food, cleaning materials and personal hygiene products! This is why we call attention for the urgency of this solidarity campaign which is directed to the West area of Rio. 

Solidarity Network for the West Zone of Rio

The Popular Collective of Women of the West Area (CPMZO) felt the need of the construction of a Solidarity Network to raise donations for some neighbourhoods, based on the ongoing political work of the groups in this region. The CPMZO is a collective, which organizes women and different local organizations in the city of Rio de Janeiro, around the radical struggle for an egalitarian, anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-patriarchal and homophobia-free society. CPMZO congregates several political, educational and cultural initiatives, as well as groups of agroecology and solidarity economy, such as the Institute of Human Formation and Popular Education, the Collective Piracema, the Collective of Caboclas, Mulheres de Pedra, the Collective Union for West Zone, the Angelica Goulart Foundation, and the Popular Plan of Vargens. 

We are organized to pressure the government to act in vulnerable areas as quickly as the situation requires, with public policies that address the historical problems of access to water, basic sanitation, public health, work and income programs. We are demanding that emergency programs for the pandemic crisis reach these neighbourhoods. But we know that the conditions in which many families live do not allow us to stay only on this path of mobilization and political action. For this reason, it required us to build this class solidarity campaign!

Our struggle is urgent and structural!

We will continue the work of mobilising women of the West area, and of denouncing and making pressure on the public power so they pay the emergency aid to the income of families that do not have formal employment or have family income per person of half the minimum wage, besides joining the various solidarity webs that are now being reactivated in the peripheries and favelas all over Rio de Janeiro!

“É na luta que a gente se encontra”! It´s on the struggle that we found one another! 


Colectives supporting the campaign: 

Coletiva Popular de Mulheres da Zona Oeste (CPMZO) 

Articulação Plano Popular das Vargens 

Mulheres De Pedra 

@Coletiva das Caboclas

Coletivo Piracema 

Fundação Angelica Goulart 

Instituto de Formação Humana e Educação Popular - IFHEP 

União Coletiva pela Zona Oeste