Social Actions Development Institute (Ideas)

The project’s goal is to propose initiatives and practices in the field of social, legal and political action in order to coordinate a network of thirteen occupations and communities who have had their right to housing threatened. Thus the initiative looks to train communities to confront and negotiate with the different actors involved in the conflict, as well as create incentives for making denunciations to national and international organizations, such that the issue receives greater visibility.

– Production of a dossier that reports on rights violations experienced by the assisted communities. The dossier should also recount the institutional violence directed at these communities, especially police actions, demonstrating the criminalization of residents of the Historic City Center of Salvador;

– Legal Accompaniment: due to the movements brought about by the 2014 FIFA World Cup, several removal processes are underway in the areas that comprise the Historic City Center. In this sense, legal actions and expropriations involving these communities and occupations will be accompanied, along with negotiations with the State in order to resolve conflicts;

– Denunciation Video: carried out in partnership with audiovisual students, the idea is to document the process of mobilizing and organizing the impacted communities and also serve as a denunciation of the rights violations to which these communities are being submitted;

– Training in human rights and public policies: there will be five training sessions involving representatives from the communities involved. The training, along the meetings that are planned, is also meant to strengthen the debate on the right to the city, among other issues.

The sporting mega-events are a reflection of the urban management model that acts as if it were a corporate action plan, with the city thought of as a product. Though the projects in Salvador connected to the World Cup apparently involve a small direct impact, it is impossible to say that there haven’t been negative social impacts resulting from preparations and urban projects stemming from the event’s needs. These impacts have been camouflaged as projects that intend to benefit the tourism and real estate industries, such as, for example, a City Hall-backed project called “Salvador, World Capital”, meant to absorb the flux of capital from future tourism due to the city’s insertion in the mega-event circuit.

All of the business and government initiatives have deepened a historical process of gentrification, denoted by the attraction of new kinds of activities and new residents, expressing itself as a “social cleansing”, and characterized by a racist profile that denies the existence of a black population, which has for decades laid clam to the historical and cultural right to remain in the city center.

IDEAS is the result of a union of professionals from diverse areas of knowledge, with experience in assistential services to socially vulnerable populations. Its activities are based on the principles of popular education and the stimulation of collective organization and autonomy to attain fundamental rights and whose goal is to develop and execute projects that contribute to social, environmental and participative development.

The organization is now part of various networks and cooperations, such as the National Network of Popular Lawyers (RENAP) the Homeless Movement of Bahia, the Center for Studies and Social Action (CEAS) and the Office of University Legal Counsel (Saju) of the Federal University of Bahia.

Joint meetings were arranged for, as well as legal assistance, the preparation of a video denunciation, the production of a dossier and training in human rights and public policy. Beyond the initial expectation of attending to and coordinating thirteen popular occupations, the interest for training spaces converged with other communities, social movements and activists of urban struggles, as well as the need for a permanent space for dialog. This in order to provide common strategies for confronting situations, a forum for exchanging experiences and solidarity.