OUR HISTORY

During three days, a youth group of 10, coming from different Brazilian favelas and peripheries got together in Maré, North Area from Rio de Janeiro, to discuss Drug Policies. Supported by the Safety and Citizenship Study Group (Centro de Estudos de Segurança e Cidadania - CESeC), they had activities to learn more about the theme and begun to draft proposals. At the end, there was one certainty: Movimentos activities could not finish. This is how Movimentos became an organization.

It was the period of time when Movimentos begun their training process on Drug Policies. During that time, the group met several Brazilian and foreign specialists and took part in meetings to discuss drugs through a favela youth point of view. We studied a lot to be able to speak about drugs from our life experiences.
 

During the training process, we noticed that were a lack of a material built by and for favelas. This was how we created our book, that was ready to go after a lot of collective effort. This book is a tool to open a debate within and from favelas.
 
Download the book here.
 

Finally, we could launch our work after a lot effort. With the book, website and social media published, our voices could be amplified and reach more people. To celebrate this achievement, two events were organized, the first one was a debate with Djamila Ribeiro, Douglas Belchior and Flávia Oliveira in Rio de Janeiro. The second one took place in São Paulo, an event with
Dr. Carl Hart, neuroscientist from Columbia University.

Click here to see event photos.

A huge national meeting with 25 young artists from different favelas and peripheries of Brazil, was organized in order to create a real agenda to change the current Drug Policy. They shared their experiences, throughout 4 days, about the impact of War on Drugs in their lives and created tools that could help this debate on favelas and peripheries, and our own perspective.
 

A special drugs themed edition in partnership with Slam Laje, took place to celebrate Movimentos second anniversary.
 
Learn more about Slam Laje.

The I Residência was an activity where 6 young people from different Brazilian favelas were selected to a 3-month immersive experience, studying and sharing about War on Drugs Policy, racism, Harm Reduction and languages as art, culture and audiovisual to build new narratives.
 
Wanna know more about Residências? Click Here.

MoviCast - Movimentos Podcast. We speak to favela and for favela. With an accessible language, our podcast discusses different themes with guests, specialists and team members in order to have different themes related to our reality. Mental health, privileges, racism, among others, were themes covered in previous episodes.
 
 

Casa Movimentos is an important collaborative space for the development of activities, methodologies, training, hosting partners and mainly as work base.
This space was only possible thanks to known and unknown partners that contributed in our Benfeitoria Crowdfunding, they believed in our objective to disseminate knowledge and to provide tools to each favela to be a protagonist in the debate directly connected with our lives, but it usually excludes us.
 

 

Due to Covid-19 II Residência Movimentos named as Quilombo-Favelas (Maroon-Favelas) was virtual. Twenty young people from different Brazilian favelas were selected to a 3-month immersive experience, studying and sharing about War on Drugs Policy, Racism, Harm Reduction and other languages as art, culture and audiovisual to learn how to build new narratives.
 
Do you wanna know more about Residências? Click Here.
 

In the beginning of 2020, coronavirus appeared without further notice. In Rio de Janeiro, quarantine and social distancing recommendations have not been able to cover autonomous workers or the unique infrastructure of most favelas houses. How to keep social distancing if most of the favela houses there are more people living in it then rooms? How to stay at home if you can’t assure your family subsistence. We are member of Frente Maré, Frente CDD and Gabinete de Crise do Alemão. We also perform money donation to buy first necessity kits as food, personal hygiene and alcohol gel. There was no way to leave favela people suffering without help upon the impact of Covid-19 that only highlighted the State absence and precariousness addressed to those territories comprised mostly by black and poor people.

Casa Movimentos is an important collaborative space for the development of activities, methodologies, training, hosting partners and mainly as work base.
This space was only possible thanks to known and unknown partners that contributed in our Benfeitoria Crowdfunding, they believed in our objective to disseminate knowledge and to provide tools to each favela to be a protagonist in the debate directly connected with our lives, but it usually excludes us.

On June 28th, the International LGBTQIA+ Pride Day, we released a mini doc inspired by 6 characters from different favelas and peripheral areas of Rio de Janeiro. It was about them pursuing self-knowledge and reflections on their gender and sexuality.
It is twelve minutes long and is available at Youtube. Brazil leads the homicides chart of LGBTQIA+ people in Latin America and is the one of the countries that has more trans people killed in the world. We need to question violence directed at this group of people and show new narratives about body types that do not reach cisnormativity and heterosexuality standards.

A house with a lot of space and terrace (laje). Our new space is just like we dreamed about. It was fast and quick to moving out/in because the old house is pretty close to our new place, just a few meters apart. We are well located in an orange alley of Parque União, Maré. The inauguration took place with luxury and ceremony. We had breakfast and tour with our families around the alley. Installed a board with the name and history of Dona Severina, founder of this area, engraved in it. We also had a meeting with institutional partners in the afternoon and funk party in the evening with special performance of MC Zuleide, DJ Renan Valle, Roda Cultural do Parque União, Slam Movimentos and a theater performance.
 

The War on Drugs has already shown its true objective, to exterminate black bodies and people from favelas. The documentary was created to question the role of white people and the government about the maintenance and support on this necropolitics and the impacts of the current Brazilian Drug Policy on violence directed at the favelas and peripheries of Rio de Janeiro. At its launch, which took place at the Casa da Cultura de São João de Meriti, there was a Slam Movimentos battle, a photograph exhibition “Favela Bunker - From Violation to Power” and a debate with activists from the National Network of Anti-Prohibitionist Feminists (Rede Nacional de Feministas Antiproibicionistas - Renfa), Coletivo Papo Reto and other organizations. The documentary was produced in partnership with the Right to Memory and Racial Justice Initiative (Iniciativa Direito a Memória e Justiça Racial - IDMJR) supported by Open Society Foundations.
 

Between August and October 2022, we received 10 young people between the ages of 18 and 29 from different areas of Rio de Janeiro to talk about Drug Policy, history, human rights, journalism, music, poetry, favela literature and other subjects. As of others editions, the participants of III Residência received a scholarship. After the easing of Covid-19 prevention measures, we were finally able to return to face-to-face meetings in our new home. Carrying out this project that unites education, communication and art has already become our tradition!
 

Our goal is to understand how people from favela and peripheries of Rio de Janeiro have access to the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes while being in the center of State violence and its criminalization. That is the question: if the favela suffers from the impacts of the War on Drugs on their lives and territories, why is it not included in this discussion from a health perspective?