Summary

The work of Redes da Maré in the Complexo da Maré favelas is a proud statement that these people exist – referring to the 140,000 residents that were officially invisible for decades. The favela area itself dates back to the 1940s, but it took more than half a century of struggles and achievements to see Maré establishing itself as an acknowledged working-class area in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Despite being described as temporary and experiencing high levels of inequality, racism and violence, such communities continue to innovate and survive with a lot of creativity and intelligence. Every day new alternatives and solutions are devised to challenge the lack of responsive public policies and a state security policy that is characterised by violence. In response a number of locally based non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have worked in support of local residents to demand better living conditions, putting forward evidencebased proposals that have improved access to water, sanitation, education, health, as well as the arts and culture.

The challenges faced by Redes da Maré are indicative of the structural violence described by Galtung (1969). It encompasses forms of violence that harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs, invariably based on both direct and/ or indirect discrimination, that so often is a casual factor in outright violent conflict. Where such structural violence is preventable it is arguably a particularly pernicious demonstration of social injustice.

This chapter explains how community activists in Complexo da Maré worked to enhance the sense of identity of local residents by recording and celebrating their stories, lives and the social relations that exist, in addition to physically mapping the area for the first time. This participative mapping exercise, undertaken with the support of sympathetic academic and civil society actors, provided an evidence base to make effective demands on service providers. The chapter also refers to the range of strategies adopted by Redes da Maré, from creative approaches to the training of local volunteers, and from the provision of direct services to advocacy and legal tactics.

Given the levels of violence suffered by residents in Complexo da Maré, specific attention is paid to the community-directed work carried out in the area of public safety and access to justice.