Religion and Social Development - Brazilian favelas

Religion and Social Development - Brazilian favelas
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Introduction
Why do the people in the favela continue to be poor when trying to carry out economic and social development with help of the church?
According to Brazilians, ‘the Favela` is a term used to refer to the underdeveloped town inhabited by former slaves who were also landless. It is a place that lacks a modern touch in terms of its buildings and other forms of infrastructure. Bairros africanos which was also referred to as (African neighborhoods) was an area set apart for the poor Brazilian citizens to live in. This indicates how discrimination was practiced on citizens according to their social classes in Brazil on the other hand, the question on why the favela people continue to be poor when trying to carry out economic and social expansion with the help of the church group, remains our main concern.
Lack of economic opportunity
Different from other countries economy, the favela economy did not do well and incase there was a time it did well, prominent persons were the only one who benefited from it. For this reason, many of the favela people lack economic opportunity hence the trend of poverty continued to increase. The other thing which delays the growth of the favela people from poverty to wealth is due to their reputation. It is well known that the Favela people were poor since 19th century. This affected their reputation and in most places they were not respected nor considered as respectable people in the society (Hellena 1944 pg 26-27).
History of slave and discrimination
The favela reputation was messed after the great rural to urban migration which took place in the 19th centuries. During this era, a good number of people vacated rural and went to town. However, not everyone was lucky to get a best place to live and therefore some Brazilians still ended up living in the shanties. From here everyone hand to look for a way of serving. The only ting that was available to construct houses was tins, among other simple possessions that they could afford and therefore the shanty town resulted this way (Perlman, 2009).
High level of unemployment
Discrimination and the history of them been the remnants of the slaves, have affected the continuity trend of poverty. For instance the favela history is not much pleasing and whenever one get the information of their past, they are treated as power and as if they deserve to be power. The other thing is the high number of unemployment in the favela and this has contributed to poverty swell.
Leaders hampered the development activities.
In contrast to reality and the stand held by the church, Arias in his article confirms that drug traffickers in the favela of Rio de Janeiro have greatly managed to control crime and solve disputes that arise in the area. These drug traffickers have become the rulers of the land. They have put up policies which ensure that the dwellers of the favela are not punished as long as they are decent people, but this could be seen different since they did this for their own benefit hence they required freedom in the market
Church group hampered by the Lords.
The church on the other hand endeavor their best to overcome poverty but this was not possible as they were hindered by the drug lords and on the other hand, development activities in the favela ware also hampered by the supremacy of favela drug trade leaders where drugs are the main primary activity in the town of favela. The main reason whey the church was hampered is due to their efforts to stop drugs. As mentioned earlier drug trafficking was seen to be a main business in the favela and a good number of the favelas dwellers engaged in this activities. Church knowing the consequences of drugs to human being, they tried their best to stop this activity but the lords who acted as the owners of the cities were the obstacles and the church face it turf to do their best to the multitude.
Catholic Church policies
Other policies which were introduced by the Catholic Church also played a role in extending poverty in favela by implementing policies that were against the use of condoms or any other way of family planning. Protestants, Afro-Brazilian religion Ubanda and Catholic were competing and this delayed development the favela. Brazilian country is believed to have the largest population of Catholic followers but its role on family planning in totally complicating. The fact is that the Catholic Church believed that use of condoms would increase infidelity in the family and trust could not be experienced again. Even though the official church criticizes the endorsement of condom use and which is viewed as central to the PN-DST/AIDS anticipation policy, abundant personality priests have campaigned for condom use as appropriate HIV prevention. This has been maintained by the Governmental, as well as the use of federal funds to fabricate informational material. On the other hand, official Church condemnations of such efforts was been rejected by the centralized management. On their side, largely sees the Church as a latent partner in HIV/AIDS care and anticipation. This can be referred to as a positive measures compared to other position where none of this was supported by the church.
Competition between Protestants, Catholic Church and Afro- Brazilian religion Ubanda
Soon after emerging of other religions different from the Catholic, there also emerged competition among them since every religion wanted some followers. The Catholic Church was referred to as outdated and that they hindered development due to their policies of not using protective measures while having sex or any family planning method. On their view, this contributed to over population hence poverty could not be controlled. Other way of using drugs were also concern to the emerging religion an obstacle that the Catholic Church did not have. Ubanda has spiritual powers and this made every religion to be different.
History
Though one may ask where the term Favela originated, it is known to have been acquired in 1800s, when a group of veteran soldiers who were from a conflict with settlers of Canudus in the Eastern province of Bahia. It is believed that the soldiers left the battle and they did not have somewhere to live but they were well conversant with Canudus (Favela Hill). It is from there that the soldiers settled in the providence hill in Rio de Janeiro and they nicknamed the place as favella hill when the slum acquired this name at first (Magalhães, 2004).
History of the formation of slaves
Later after this, there was interest of domination of cities and real estates in the early 1920s and come 1940s, housing crisis emerged resulting to eviction of the poor where most citizens were short of away from downtown and they were forced to live in the outer edge. From this act, hundreds of shantytowns were erected. At this place, no one could ask them since it was believed that the place they vacated to was a no man land and it was for those who were slaves and those who did not own land (Stam, 1997).
History of slavery in Brazil
Slavery in Brazil had turned to a central thing during the colonial economy. This happened soon after the Portuguese discovered mines in Brazil and therefore the need for labor to work in the big estates and mines was experienced. The Portuguese had started having American slaves but the impact is that they were weak in disease resistance hence they died in large number due to mistreatment. After they noticed that, they went to the coast of Africa where they started taking Africans to BRAZIL. During this period, slave trade became more popular such that Brazilian from all classes had owned slave. It is believed that even some of the slaves had owned other slaves and this why slavery in Brazil was much popular compared to any other part of the world.
Rural exodus This was not the end of the favela expansion since things were still up-coming. For instance, in 1940s, the favela growth increased as industrialization drive dragged a big population of migrants into the Federal District. From there not everyone was lucky to secure a job and therefore they were forced to have a place in the shanty town. Later in 1970, the shanty town could no longer be controlled and it expanded beyond urban Rio into metropolitan border. During the same era, the current favela begun as there was construction boom in the affluent district of Rio de Janeiro, where they initiated rural exodus of workers from the poorest states in Brazil.
The favela is believed to have originated as mentioned above and the town is built around the edge of the main city. Though the place is believed to be overpopulated as well much congested, some of the residents try to acquire titles to the land and improve their way of living. In some parts, the town has organizations which help them in obtaining services like electricity and water, which are some of the crucial things for man. The challenge was that the place was much crowded, poor nutrition, unsanitary conditions; infant mortality rates were higher as well as diseases and this made the place to be a challenging environment.
Current Economic and Social Conditions in favelas
Wealth distribution in Brazil is quite unequal making most of the favelas to be connected with tremendous poverty. This makes the Brazilian economy unequal compared to other countries in the world. It is known that Brazil top 10 percent of its population earns 50 percent of the national income with 8.5 percent of the living below the poverty line. This affected the government and they started coming up with measures to eradicate poverty. In their attempt, they were able to eradicate 100,000 residents and placed them in public housing. They also attempted to upgrade the favela through gentrification deal and take them into inner cities but this did not work since this act fascinated the lower class and hence emerging of street dwellers which started to hider the economic progress (Frank 2007pg 415).
Unemployment rates
The other thing that affected the Favelas economy is due to high rate of unemployment. Just after the rural urban migration, not every favelan was lucky to secure a job and therefore most of them remained unemployed. As a result, most of those who did not secure jobs involved themselves in the drug business and this continued to point of having drug lords. Cocaine trade is the main activity that most of the favelas interact with. For these reasons, those in the top of the business became the lords.
Domination of the drug trade and main economic activity
The drug trade resulted to regular shoots between police traffickers and other criminals since this was considered and is still an illegal activity all over the world. In this case, there was misapprehension between the police and the traffickers. The traffickers guaranteed individuals and residence their own security and therefore they did not ...