A
priviliged moment of union, dedication, initiative,
participative organization, learning and working in
Padrinho Sebastião’s brotherhood
Since
February 2003, Céu do Mapiá has been going through
a very special moment, greatly mobilizing it’s people
and winning the heart of it’s founders and elders as
much as of it’s youngsters and newly arrived dwellers.
This
is all due to the so called PDC, Plano de Desenvolvimento
Comunitário (Community Development Plan), an intense
process of work amounting so far to an year and four months
of activity.
As
the name says, the plan is meant to mobilize the community
so that it can discuss and decide by itself in which ways
it wants to grow and develop. The project arose out of a legal
necessity: to elaborate a Plan of Controlled Resources Management,
an obligation the community has before the federal government’s
office of natural resources (Ibama – Instituto Brasileiro
do Meio Ambiente), for being situated inside a reservation,
the Floresta Nacional do Purus (Purus River National Forest).
Projects
Workshop held on June 9th: all meetings and conferences for
the Community Deveopment Plan begin and end with the participants
holding hands and singing a hymn
How
the Community Development Plan came about
The
need of technical and financial support to elaborate this
Plan of Controlled Resources Management led our organization
IDA-Cefluris to ask for help from WWF (World Wildlife Fund),
the world’s largest and most traditional environmentalist
NGO. This organization not only answered our call, but –
in partnership with the village’s public administration
office, the AMVCM – Associação de Moradores
da Vila Céu do Mapiá (Association of Residents
of Céu do Mapiá Village) – also invited
two more NGOs of strong presence and well recognized work
in the Amazon – CTA (Centro de Trabalhadores da Amazônia)
and Instituto Nawa – to help in the training and empowerment
of people from the community itself, who were involved in
the project as agents of communal development.
What
the Community Development Plan has already achieved
In
the first stage of work, during 2003, a first round of conferences
and meetings were held at all the community’s districts,
apart from the so called “dream workshops”. In
these occasions, all of the village’s residents had
the opportunity to point out what each of them considered
to be Mapiá’s benefits and problems and also
to suggest solutions for these problems. In the “dream
workshops”, everyone was also given a chance to reflect
on what they imagined to be the ideal Mapiá, the Mapiá
of their dreams.
Theatrical sketch representing the Mapiá
of each one's dreams,
presented in the General Assembly held in April 18th
This
general examination of the community used the image of a bridge
– as a means to take Mapiá from it’s present
moment to a better future for all. This bridge would be made
of many boards, each one of them representing a sector of
the village’s administration – organizing, in
this way, the discussions and lines of study and action in
different groups, with each participant dedicating himself
to the area of work he or she was most insterested in.
Also
during 2003, many concrete actions were carried out, with
the following results:
-
Survey and profile of all the institutions working in the
community: the AMVCM and its administrative branches (health,
energy, social assistance etc), the school, Casa de Ofícios
(the textile and handcraft center), CMF – Centro Medicina
da Floresta (Forest Medicine Center), Santa Casa (Holy House
of Health) and others.
-
Acquisition of a computer and a printer for the AMVCM.
-
Repair of the community radio station’s equipment.
-
Financing of part of the magazine “Céu do Mapiá
20 Anos”, published by the State Government of Acre.
-
Aerial photographs for studies of the National Forest.
-
Consultancy of lawyers specialized in land rights and territorial
law.
-
Three Groups of Action composed of village residents: Forest
Resources Controlled Management, Agricultural Production
and Environmental Health.
-
Courses of wood joinery in Rio Branco (Acre’s state
capital) for the Forest Resources Controlled Management
Group of Action.
-
Courses of an ecological system of agriculture known as
agroforest, for the Agricultural Production Group of Action,
ministered by a team from UFAC – Universidade Federal
do Acre (Federal University of Acre).
-
Detailed examination and diagnosis of the conditions of
garbage disposal, water and sewage in the community, done
by the Environmental Health Group of Action, with support
from specialized technical consultancy.
-
Closer approach of the federal government’s office
of natural resources (Ibama).
Presentation of a general picture of the Commuity
Development Plan,
at the Assembly held on June 20th
This
year, the work on the Community Development Plan continued
in a new phase. First, all the resident’s opinions and
suggestions gathered in 2003 were collected and brought to
new meetings in all the village’s districts, to deepen
the study. This phase reached it’s most important moment
at a great assembly in April. In this occasion, all the lists
of Mapiá’s benefits, problems and possible solutions
were presented to the whole population, organized in the aforesaid
“boards” that symbolize administrative sectors.
Each member of the community chose, then, the area he wanted
to work in, resulting not only in the creation of new Groups
of Action, but also bringing new members to those that already
existed (the complete list of Groups of Action is given below).
For the next phase, going on at this moment, were created
the Project Workshops, so that each one of these Groups of
Action could choose the main problems it wanted to solve and
elaborate it’s project of work to achieve this, also
with the necessary technical consultancy. Once written and
finalized, these projects will be revised by the Community
Development Plan’s team of technical consultants and
sent to organizations and institutions which help finance
such lines of action. However, the community’s Groups
of Actions are mostly, apart from preparing projects, already
at work (some at quite advanced stages) on what they can do
already, without waiting for funding to arrive.
Groups
of Action
1
Forest Resources Controlled Management
Unites residents who work in sawing, joinery, carpentry
and wood handcraft. Together with Environmental Health,
it is one of the two Groups of Action that already has it’s
project formulated, studying the creation of rules for proper
extraction of wood in the National Forest and organizing
this activity in the community.
2
Environmental Health
Unites volunteers who care about garbage disposal and healthy
water and sewage conditions. Together with Forest Resources
Controlled Management, it is one of the two Groups of Action
that already has it’s project formulated, proposing
a system of selective garbage collection for the village,
together with environmental education campaigns and scientific
analysis of the local conditions of water and sewage.
3
Agricultural Production
Unites residents who work in agriculture and are interested
in the communal organization of the production, including
annual planning and selected areas for plantation. Their
form of work is innovative, replacing the ancient slash-and-burn
method of traditional Amazon people with modern ecological
systems known as agroforest and agrobeach.
4
Communication
Unites Rádio Jagube (the communal radio station)
and Telecentro Nova Idéia (the communal center with
computers and internet broadband satellite access, in partnership
with the school) with residents interested in amplifying
the community’s internal and external communication
with other means and resources.
5
School
Unites the teachers of the community’s school (Escola
Estadual Cruzeiro do Céu), seeking better negotiations
with the government, elaboration of the school’s Political
Pedagogics Plan, more training for teachers and workshops
for technical courses.
6
Social Assistance
Unites volunteers interested in strengthening the communal
services of social assistance, accessing information about
public programs, collecting funding and support in geral,
helping the elderly and destitute members of the community
and promoting family education campaigns. This group has,
among it’s members, Madrinhas Sílvia and Dodô.
7
Energy
Unites workers and local technicians interested in creating
an ecological system of public energy for the community.
8
Doctrine
Unites volunteers interested in the organization and maintenance
of the church and the feitio (ritual production of our Sacrament).
This group also initiated a detailed plan of work in the
Community Development Plan’s Project Workshop and
is headed by Madrinha Júlia in person.
9
Public Health
Unites workers of this community sector, seeking the creation
of a Communal Health Plan and a Center of Reception, Diagnosis
and Referral, to integrate the current Health Center with
the Santa Casa (Holy House of Health) and the CMF (Forest
Medicine Center) and organize general assistance.
10
Art, Leisure and Culture
Unites residents interested in creating a communal arts
and culture center and organizing activies such as a music
school, capoeira (Afro-Brazilian martial art) and sports.
11
Vegetable Gardens, Arboretuns and Forest Nourishment Resources
Unites residents interested in creating communal vegetable
gardens and arboretuns and using local product (in items
such as flours, fruit jam, biscuits etc) to improve the
quality of food available in the community and lower it’s
cost of living.
12
Cooperative
Unites members of Cooperar (the local cooperative) and other
residents interested in structuring and strenghtening this
enterprise, accessing external markets for the the local
production (both agricultural and non-agricultural) and
increasing the final products’ value.
13
Visitation, Reception and Tourism
Unites local hotelkeepers and other residents interested
in organizing the reception of visitors both in Céu
de Mapiá and Boca de Acre, remembering that rules
for visitation of the National Forest should be an important
part of the final document of the Plan of Controlled Resources
Management.
14
Community Development Agents
Unites the residents trained by our technical consultancy
as agents for the facilitation and organization of the whole
process’ meetings, conferences assemblies and all
other kinds of activities, as well as helping the Groups
of Action in the elaboration of their projects.
The
Group of Action for Environmental Health in conference for
the elaboration
of it's project, at the workshop held on June 10th
If you want to help Céu do Mapiá’s Community
Development Plan, or any of these Groups of Action in particular,
either through donations of money or equipament, or through
technical-professional expertise in any one of these areas,
your support is most welcome!
We
also ask you to spread all this information about the Community
Development Plan in your own church or center.
Associação
de Moradores da Vila Céu do Mapiá: (55 97) 457-1005
E-mail Grupo de Comunicação PDC: gcmapia@uol.com.br
