the call . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

the call, originally uploaded by Tatiana Cardeal.

AÇÃO URGENTE (click no link, em português)

We need five minutes of your day, and a FAX machine.

from Amnesty International,
to help the Prestes Maia 468 families.

A judge has issued a new order to evict the 468 families who have been living in the derelict Prestes Maia building in central São Paulo for over two years. The municipal authorities must carry out the order before 4 March. Amnesty International is calling you to an urgent action. You can see it in this links.

English
Espanol
Français

Please, spread the word, and sign the online pettition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/pmaia911/

Join our group at Flickr, to support and be informed about this issue:
The Prestes Maia Hope

Picture during a meeting at Prestes Maia occupation of the Homeless Movement of Central São Paulo, in 2005.

your name, my rights

your name, my rights, originally uploaded by Tatiana Cardeal.

This petition on the UN draft declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has now a bit more than 5700 names.

I wish we would make thousands.
Please, send this link to a friend,
let's make it grow.
Thank you.

GLOBAL PETITION
(click above to sign it)

“Indigenous peoples the world over continue to be among the most marginalized and dispossessed sectors of society, the victims of perennial prejudice and discrimination.”

Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"An estimated 370 million Indigenous women, men and children worldwide face racism, discriminatory laws and eviction from lands central to their cultures and livelihoods.

After more than two decades of negotiation and debate, the United Nations is moving forward with global human rights standards to protect the rights of Indigenous peoples."

More details about this campaign at
Amnesty International (english)
Amnesty International (espanhol)
Amnesty International (français)
Amnesty International (Arabic)

> This is a Gavião boy. Gavião People lives at the Maranhão state, in Brazil.
They were about 250 (in 1998) .

A state of mind

Tatiana Cardeal © All photographs

Thank you, all of you that joined the Ceasefire Campaign.
This were words at Mundo Uno group, about how the Campaign developed. Click at this link to read.

The picture above were Mothers who had lost their children by violence of gun fire, doing a symbolic ritual during the opening
of the Urban Outcries II. A project from Chidren At Risk Foundation, CARF.

............................................................................................................

Children and young of the Sao Paulo periphery
send letters for Lebanon and Israel
16/08/2006 São Paulo -

Two thousand children between 12 to 18 years cared by the Social Center Ours Lady of the Good Childbirth ( Centro Social Nossa Senhora do Bom Parto), on to the Pastoral of the Minor, had produced correspondences for inhabitants of the same age of Lebanon and Israel. The Brazilians live in the periphery at the zone east of the São Paulo capital. In this thursday (august, 17), a group of adolescents and young - the majority of which already had assassinated next relatives and already was violence victim - will make the symbolic delivery of the correspondences in the office of UNESCO in São Paulo. The letters are part of an activity developed in the 54 centers of attendance from the project. The objective is to work the subject of solidarity daily enters the peoples from the violence, problem faced for the majority of the children and young of the Social Center Ours Lady of the Good Childbirth. The temporary representative of UNESCO in Brazil, Vincent Defourny, will direct the correspondences to the ambassadors of the Lebanon and Israel next to the headquarters of the Organization, in Paris.

World Ceasefire Vigil

Please, sign the petition:
ceasefire campaign


originally uploaded by Tatiana Cardeal. All photographs © 2003-2006.

Those are mothers who had lost their children by violence of gun fire, doing a symbolic ritual during the opening of the Urban Outcries II, a project from Chidren At Risk Foundation, CARF.

We also are needing to work for the ceasefire in my country too.

Prestes Maia, the fight for rights

originally uploaded by Tatiana Cardeal
All photographs © 2006.

Prestes Maia, is a colossal abandoned clothes factory that towers over central Sao Paulo, and the biggest occupation of Latin America, with 22 storeys in total, is home to 468 families; around 2,000 people from the MSTC - Movimento dos Sem Teto do Centro (Downtown Homeless People's Movement).

The community is meticulously organised and removed 200 lorry loads of rubbish and 1.500 cubic meters of sewerage from the building’s ground floor, together with all the rest, bestowing upon it the social function of a domicile as determined by the Federal Constitution.
They had organized the cleanning maintenance, the security, they had banned all the traffic of drugs and crimes from the building, making it a familiar place full of activities. The created a library, recycling program, and cultural activities with artists and partners.

The owners of the building, Jorge Hamuche and Eduardo Amorim, who do not possess the title deed, abandoned the building for twenty years and owe close to BRL$5 million (EUR$1.8 million) in taxes.
But, an injunction has been issued for the repossession of the building.
The judge of the 25th Civil Jurisdiction of Sao Paulo granted an injunction for the repossession of the property, ignoring the residential rights of the occupants and even a UN report that declares; "the municipal government of Sao Paulo, through the Secretary of Habitation and Urban Development and COHAB, should promote the renovation of the Prestes Maia building for housing and social interests, to meet the objective of the dispossession of the building by the municipality."

The authorities didn't plan a project to remove everybody, and we know that they will return to live at the streets. We are trying to stop this, and to pressure the state governor Geraldo Alckmin and the mayor from the city José Serra, to make first a project, and then remove the families.

I've created a new set to publish the pictures of the development of this story, called "Where do we go?", and a Flickr's community to support them, "The Prestes Maia Hope", with an online petition to be signed (there is a translation of the text for english and french), and much more details about this story.
Please join us.