WomenofNovaHolandaandtheChapaRosa

At the turn of the 1970s into the 1980s, women led one of the most intense community movements in Maré. In the midst of the redemocratization process, when the residents' associations of Rio's favelas were under heavy state control, a legacy of the Military Dictatorship still in force, Nova Holanda saw a community movement flourish with a strong female presence, electing one of the first women as president of a residents' association, through the Chapa Rosa.

Image description: The image is a color photograph of six people posing in front of a house numbered 17 on the door. The spatial arrangement goes from left to right, starting with a boy standing on the left, followed by two adult women, one elderly and another younger, and ending with two older women on the right. Everyone is wearing t-shirts printed with the phrase "Chapa Rosa." The house has a white wall with some stains and a telephone panel on the side. The doors are blue with clear windows.

This came about through a community health education initiative developed by Fiocruz with local groups in Nova Holanda that, for the most part, were made up of women such as, for example, Maria Amélia Belfort, a mother who fought for water supply, daycare centers, sewage systems, etc. Caring for her family gave Maria Amélia and other women the strength to fight not only for themselves, but for the rights of their children, which were denied in various ways.

Eliana Sousa e Silva, at the time a young student connected to the Catholic Church, through her work with Fiocruz going street by street, house by house, gained knowledge of the local reality and of what improvements the residents of Nova Holanda wanted. She describes how the process of the dispute over the Nova Holanda Residents' Association played out, at a time when it was under state control, both through decrees and through pressure to ensure that the president would be someone sympathetic to the government:

A gente começou a trabalhar essa perspectiva de como a gente podia constituir a associação de moradores. Então, neste trabalho porta a porta, a gente reproduziu essa ideia de construir a associação de moradores. E aí a gente juntou um grupo de umas 30 pessoas para discutir se a gente realmente queria ir pra associação. E começamos um trabalho, de um ano discutindo. Por que a associação é importante? Que luta a gente vai empreender? O trabalho do postinho já estava indo embora, porque era um projeto da Fiocruz. ( ...) o fato da gente ter tido essa escola, de aprender e ir atrás, a gente começa a discutir e começa a fazer um trabalho que foi muito bonito, que foi interno, que juntava o bloco, o grupo de mulheres, a igreja, esse grupo de pessoas jovens, ali do posto. E a gente falou: “vamos concorrer! E como vai ser essa chapa?” Quando a gente viu, a maioria era mulher. "Vai ser chapa Rosa!"

With over 1,800 votes – almost 5 times more than the incumbent slate – Chapa Rosa, with Eliana as president, took over the management of the Nova Holanda Association. Taking the association out of State control and away from the inertia that marked the administration at the time was essential for the residents of Nova Holanda to be able to demand improvements for the favela, amid the transformations that Brazil and the city of Rio were experiencing. Chapa Rosa contributed not only to the residents' quality of life, but also to Brazilian society's efforts to put an end to the Military Dictatorship.