Brazil: Up Close to Zero Hunger


Brazil: Up Close to Zero Hunger

Pastor Alves da Silva is not a pastor, but a fisherman. He lives in
a neighborhood in Brazil called Ponto Chic (Chic Place), but the area
is a slum without any elegance. Da Silva’s family is one of the 2850
in
the region that are enrolled in the Zero Hunger program, a plan to feed
the poor, created by
another da Silva, president Lula.

by:
AB

 

According to Brazilian old-time backlanders
(sertaneaw6kx), the personification of
sertão hunger is a skeleton wearing
a big hat. Needless to say, the skeleton wearing a big hat is a frightful, haunting figure, full of bad vibrations who scares
many people. Like Pastor Alves da Silva, 43, father of six, a fisherman who complains that it is not easy feeding so many
mouths with the aquatic life in a small reservoir behind a small dam just outside town.

"I know all about the cost of living for the poor. It’s a hard life with little chance to get ahead, so when I have any
extra fish I sell them for whatever the market will bear. It all depends on the way the buyer looks and what I think he can
pay," says Silva, who lives in the town of Delmiro Gouveia. But he admits that compared to the sharks in the local fair, and
the town’s store owners, he is an amateur. "Now those guys really know how to wheel and deal. They drive such hard
bargains that you don’t have a chance, they can run you out of business in a wink. They really know how to fleece a customer,"
says an admiring Silva.

Silva, the fisherman, lives in one of Delmiro Gouveia’s poorest slums called Ponto Chic (Chic Place), where there is
little smart elegance and sophistication, but there are a lot of families enrolled in the Zero Hunger program. In the whole poor
county, there are 2,850 of them. "This is a place where the head of a family has to use his head to put food on the table
[translator’s note: "heat up his brain to get up a meal over the fire," is a more literal translation of what Silva said]. He continues:
"With this helping hand [referring to the program] maybe we can work for a little more than just a hand-to-mouth existence.
Maybe we can get our act together," he says hopefully. Silva’s first name is Pastor, which means preacher, but he is not one, it
is just his name.

Zero Hunger is run by the Mesa Program ("Mesa"—table—stands for Extraordinary Ministry of Hunger Combat
and Food Security), which seeks to boost local produce of any and all kinds. Thus, the county where Delmiro Gouveia is
located has aquaculture, home broom factories and recycles its waste.

Vaneide de Brito, 32, is the mother of Janeide, 9; Renata, 6; José Vitor, 4; and Rafael, 3 months. She makes brooms
at home to support her family. She inherited the backroom broom factory from her father who "lost his lust for life," after
his wife died and now spends as little time as possible in the house because of bitter memories.

"If there is a little more determination. If we can get some help with purchases of material we need to make our
brooms. If we can work together, maybe we can climb out of the hole we are in," says Vaneide. She is betting on Zero Hunger to
organize the labor force. "Brooms sell well here. People do not like dirt around here. They very much like things sparkling
clean," she explains.

Old timers say the local concern with cleanliness dates back, like so many other things in the region, to Delmiro
Gouveia himself. He was obsessed with personal hygiene to the point where he fined his factory workers for spitting (the fine
went into a worker’s fund). And today you can see signs around town like this one: "Visitors are warned to avoid getting sick
to their stomach because we do not have public toilets."

Besides the cleanliness, Gouveia did not permit firearms in his domains. He is reported to have explained his
position on the subject by saying that, "In this place, besides cows, pigs and poultry, no one except God can kill anything."

Unfortunately, Gouveia himself was killed in an ambush by gunmen
(cangaceiros) in the pay of landowners on
October 10, 1917. "What happened was that the evil of the past killed the promise of the future," says Frederico Pernambucano
de Melo, a local researcher and historian.

 

This article was prepared by Agência Brasil (AB), the official press agency of the Brazilian government.
Comments are welcome at lucas@radiobras.gov.br 

You May Also Like

The Lowdown on Brazil: Country Gets First Trade Deficit Since 2001

January brought Brazil its first monthly trade deficit in almost eight years as exports ...

Development with Justice, Job Number 1 in Brazil

Development will be Brazil’s battle cry for the next two years. According to the ...

Brazil Produces 36.6 Million Tons of Cement, a 6.3% Growth

The Industrial, Commercial and Mining Enterprise Society (Soeicom), owner of cement brand Cimentos Liz, ...

Brazil Opposition Accuses Lula of Buying Votes and Calls for Foreign Observers

Brazilian President’s statement during a political rally that "democracy is not only clean stuff" ...

Brazilian economist Plínio Soares de Arruda Sampaio

Lula’s Closeness to Chavez Only Makes Brazil More Alluring to Bush

The Bank of the South is already a reality. Enthusiasts say it is another ...

A Brazilian Slaughterhouse Turned to Europe

Slaughterhouse Mercosul, from the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, is one ...

Brazil’s Message to Obama: It Wishes to Be Treated as an Equal

Antonio Patriota, Brazil’s Foreign minister, says that the visit by the American president Barack ...

Ahmadinejad Says He Won’t Renounce Right to Nuclear Technology. Lula Backs Him

The Iranian program of nuclear energy was supported today, November 23, by the president ...

Brazilian Steel Production Is Down 10% This Year

Brazil produced 2.5 million tons of raw steel in May, 3.3% more than in ...

Brazil Kisses Goodbye to Offshore Deal with Venezuela’s PDVSA

Brazilian state-controlled oil multinational Petrobras has abandoned plans to help develop Venezuela's Mariscal Sucre ...