Sustainable Development Network of Greater Bom Jardim

The project seeks to engagement youth and groups directly involved with the DLIS Network in the public monitoring and social control of public safety policies as applied to the region of greater Bom Jardim (Fortaleza, CE), a “Territory of Peace.” The initiative looks to focus on the phenomenon of youth mortality, aiming to persuade public authorities to take coordinated action (weapons control, access to the justice system for victims to upload their social, economic, cultural and environmental rights), as well as develop a widespread public awareness campaign on the importance of young lives.

– Networking and mobilization: holding meetings with the Human Safety Commission, Young Agents of Peace, Youth Forum, Local Development Network of Greater Bom Jardim, Local Precinct of the Military Police and the Community Social Defense Councils for planning, monitoring and evaluation.

– Holding a workshop to present local information on proposals and demands to confront youth mortality to the public safety, justice and executive authorities.

– Monitoring research and action: community mapping of youth murders and memorials for the victims, construction of a database on criminal and public safety statistics and creation of a local notification, based on information from the research and human rights violations against young people in greater Bom Jardim.

– Popular Monitoring and Public Awareness: Holding of public meetings, based on the Theater Forum’s methodology, and which individuals from victim memorial groups, local activists, youth and the public safety and legal systems can participate.

– Shared production of the script and production of a documentary and video campaign with examples of youth mortality.

– Production of communications materials, such as booklets, banners, folders and bands.

– Forwarding of emblematic cases of youth murders in the area and studying legal possibilities and opportunities to seek international human rights involvement.

Fortaleza in one of the most unequal cities in the world, and the area of greater Bom Jardim contains five of its ten poorest neighborhoods, sporting the lowest per capita income in the city and 204,000 inhabitants. Between 2007 and 2010, 491 people died due to violence.

The Bom Jardim neighborhood alone, between 2007 and 2009, was the neighborhood with the most homicides. Besides the homicide rate itself, the proportion of youth involved is most troubling: 186 young persons, between 15 and 29, were killed, which corresponds to 60% of the 312 cases of homicide registered.

At the beginning of 2008, the Fortaleza municipal government signed a bill with the National Public Safety and Citizenship Program, which declared the neighborhood an “Area of Peace.”

In November of 2007, greater Bom Jardim was the first area to receive the “Block Patrol” program’s attention. Since then, the best idea in response to these coordinated actions has been the saturation operations, which permit zero tolerance of human rights violations in the name of public safety. But regarding crime investigations, the numbers are alarming. Nearly 500 requests to investigate violent deaths have been brought, from 2005 to June of this year. Of these, 200 have been forwarded to the justice system and another 300 are under investigation by a limited police force: one deputy, two clerks and three detectives.

The Sustainable Development Network of Greater Bom Jardim (DLIS Network) is a body constituted from networks and struggles involving 33 entities and movements interested in specific issues in each neighborhood, coordinating activities in the region and the city. It began in December of 2003 and acts as a center of diagnostics, planning and monitoring of public policies on human rights in five neighborhoods in the region.

The DLIS Network will also work to strengthen the identity, history and memory of these places, increasing the value and human, cultural, artistic and environmental value of this landscape. The DLIS Network is involved with the National Human Rights Movement, Herbert de Souza Defense of Life Center, the ViraMundo Environmental Institute and the Center for Citizenship and Human Value.

The project enabled the supplying of a database, as planned. A seminar on the Mapa de Violência (survey on violence) was held, with the organizer present, as well as youth conferences on formulating proposals for confronting rights violations, with particular attention paid to confronting the extermination of youth. The pre-conferences were held at the Youth Forum, with a summary document constituting a basis for public hearings with public authorities. There were also discussion groups held at schools. Another fulfilled activity was the production of a documentary, with audiovisual workshops for young scholarship recipients.