My name is Roberto Gomes dos Santos, I’m 49, I was a civil servant but now I’m retired. We’ve got a group of people who check out buildings which have been abandoned and don’t have any kind of social function before an occupation takes place. Once the building has been identified, we get the families
My name is Ozeneide Pereira da Silva, I’m 30, I’m a manicurist, I lived on Rua Ecuador, number 700. [How long did you live there for?] For 20 years. Actually, we first saw the rumour on the internet. That there was going to be a disappropriation, they were building a new line and we would
This is my home at the moment, you know? Before I lived with my wife in Colegio, then when we got married we came to live in Vila Autodromo with my cousin. We had some land at that time, and we built a humble house until we received notice that we were in the situation
My name is Neuza Velasco da Silva, and I’m going to be 66 in August. I lived on the Estrada da Ligacao, behind Ipadu, backing onto 700. But my land was private, and I paid 45 years of taxes there. I paid water, electricity, IPTU, I always paid. Suddently the highway was being built, they
The black guy sang a song of revolt in the air In the Quilombo of Palmares, where he was a refugee It was the struggle of the conspiracy to break the chains It was to no avail And in war there is peace, in peace there is war All the people on this earth when
“The people in a struggle are not playing around. You are talking to the quilombo of warriors [quilombo das guerreiras).” And in that moment, I was in despair, I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t have a way to get out of there. What I earned wasn’t enough to pay for rent somewhere else.
At the beginning, it was everyone together, helping each other. There was a kitchen which we all worked in, and everyone helped. I was one of them, I helped in the kitchen, it was great. Then people started leaving, so the thing with the kitchen didn’t carry on. I just cooked in my room. At
I lived there for nine years. From there, we came here, just that they said they were going to bring us here, but we often go without water. A lot of things were better there. My house was one room you just walked into. I divided it up with things like the wardrobe. There was
My name is Maria de Fatima, I’m 38 and I’m from Ceara, and I’m studying tourism management at CEDERJ [university], I’m fighting and working in the tourism area, cycle tourism. In Faria [ladeira do faria, in Providencia], I went there around 2007, 2008. It’s a system of occupation there, people occupy it and when they
Maria da Conceicao Queiroz da Silva, nanny, 41, ex-resident of Vila Autodromo I was evicted from Vila Autodromo because of the Olympics. In fact, my dream was actually to have stayed on there, and got one of those houses, because I never would have had to leave. But also, there was so much pressure, there
