New hope is sprouting near a future Brazil 2014 World Cup stadium, where a once crime-ridden shantytown has emerged as a vibrant community with skyrocketing property values.
Emerging powerhouse Brazil faces a daunting task in providing decent housing for its millions of urban poor, many of whom languish in slums, known as favelas, on the periphery of major cities.
But in Sao Paulo, the country’s most populous and wealthiest state, increased funding and close monitoring has transformed some of these once drug-infested favelas.
A showcase of that policy is Uniao de Vila Nova, a neighborhood of 32,000 people located 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the Sao Paulo city center.
Like many other shantytowns across Brazil, Uniao de Vila Nova was created illegally, by people who, unable to afford city rents, cobbled together squalid, wooden shacks in risky or environmentally-protected areas.
But in place of the rickety homes — once routinely swept away by the flood waters of the nearby Tiete Tiver during the rainy season — the one-million-square meter (10.7 million square feet) area has morphed into a clean, safe and proud community.
The changes began a decade ago, when authorities launched a program to “urbanize” the favelas. They helped residents upgrade their homes and brought in basic services such as running water, paved roads, electricity and public transport.
The results have been striking.
“We have not had any murder in six years, while we used to have four a day in the 1990s,” says community leader Geraldo de Pindola Melo.
Melo migrated here in 1984 from the northeastern state of Pernambuco, joining the six percent of 42 million people in Sao Paulo who live in shantytowns.
The 42-year-old now lives with his wife and four children in a small, brightly colored house that he built and upgraded over the years, with help from the Sao Paulo state housing agency CDHU.
“This is a very cohesive, stable community,” he told AFP.
Today, the neighborhood has seven schools, three daycare centers, regular trash collection, a local soccer league with 28 teams and a recycling cooperative employing 36 trash pickers, most of them women.
Residents also have a handicraft workshop, a gardening school equipped with a greenhouse and a factory where rehabilitated drug addicts come to make vuvuzelas, the noise-making trumpets popularized by South African football fans during the last World Cup.
A new train station is set to open early next year, while a technical college will soon be built and residents hope to get a new mini-hospital soon.
Throughout the neighborhood, residents, beaming with pride, showed off new, well-equipped apartments, built with CDHU funding, and rented for 15 percent of their income.
Others who own their homes were contributing to a beehive of construction activity as they upgraded or expanded their brick and concrete dwellings.
“We have 3,010 families living in new vertical apartment blocks funded by CDHU, while 5,300 families live in their own urbanized homes,” said Valkaria Marques de Paula, a CDHU official.
Valeria Araujo da Silva, the local urbanization secretary, has seen the transformation of her neighborhood since she moved to Uniao de Vila Nova 16 years ago.
She and her husband built their own house, and thanks to the property boom in Sao Paulo’s eastern district — where construction is underway on the stadium that will host the opening game of the 2014 World Cup — da Silva says her home is now valued at $65,000.
The prices of many homes in the neighborhood have jumped as World Cup fever grows and word spreads about the emerging community in Uniao de Vila Nova.
“In 2000, you could buy a 25-square meter (270 square feet) apartment for $1,000 here; now it is worth $25,000,” said Ailton Severino Dias, better known as “Pe de Frango,” who arrived here 20 years ago and also built his own home.
Authorities are in the process of carrying out land registration in urbanized favelas and homeowners will begin receiving ownership titles in the next few months. In exchange, said CDHU’s de Paula, they will have to pay property taxes. De Paula said the urbanization policy works if “you empower the residents.”
“We have been training community leaders that then teach responsible citizenship. We have launched health and sanitation awareness campaigns and residents have responded,” she added.
CDHU President Antonio Carlos do Amaral stressed that “our job is to reintegrate marginalized people into society as productive citizens. Housing is only one phase of that process.”
He called for expanding the projects, which would require the city, the federal government and the private sector to get involved.
Sao Paulo state has an annual housing budget of $ 1.1 billion, 43 percent of which is spent on building new homes or upgrading existing ones for favela residents, according to Eduardo Trani of CDHU.
Over the past 20 years, some 500,000 homes have been built for an estimated two million low-income people across the state.
But state officials say there is a still a deficit of half a million dwellings for the poor and another two million homes deemed sub-standard.
The Sao Paulo metropolitan area alone is home to 20 million people, roughly 10 percent of whom live in favelas and illegal settlements.
Sao Paulo slum transforms into vibrant community
Sao Paulo slum transforms into vibrant community
Thai coffee chains cut default sugar content in coffee and tea drinks in a new health push
- The Health Department says Thais consume 21 teaspoons of sugar daily, far exceeding the World Health Organization’s recommended six teaspoons
- Officials warn this increases obesity and diabetes risks. A survey found iced coffee and bubble tea contain high sugar levels
BANGKOK: For many Thais, a meal doesn’t feel complete without an iced coffee or tea so sugary it could pass for dessert. The government, concerned about the health consequences, wants them to dial it back.
Starting Wednesday, nine major coffee chains across the country have pledged to cut the default sugar content in some of their drinks by half in a government initiative aimed at tackling excessive sugar consumption.
According to the Health Department, Thais consume an average of 21 teaspoons of sugar per day, more than three times the World Health Organization’s recommended limit of six teaspoons. Health officials warn that such high intake increases the risk of obesity, diabetes and other diseases.
The initiative is the first significant step to change consumers’ sugar consumption behavior, said Amporn Benjaponpitak, the director general of the department.
Pakorn Tungkasereerak, the department’s deputy, said 2025 data show that about 45 percent of Thais aged 15 and older are obese, while 10 percent of the population has diabetes.
A survey by the Bureau of Nutrition found that a 22-ounce (650-milliliter) iced coffee contains an average of nine teaspoons of sugar, while a 10-ounce (300-milliliter) serving of bubble milk tea — an iced milk tea with tapioca pearls known as boba — can contain as much as 12 teaspoons.
Sirinya Kuiklang, an office worker, said she approves of the changes. She already orders her drinks at just 25 percent of the standard sugar level, but she is aware that many others consume too much sugar.
“It’s good for Thai people,” she said.
Another office worker, Porwares Tantikanpanit, said he has enjoyed his non-coffee beverages at their current sugar levels but is willing to adjust if shops reduce the sweetness.
However, putting the policy into practice may prove challenging. Officials have said each brand can apply the initiative as they see fit.
Some customers have expressed confusion in response to social media posts promoting the initiative, asking how to order drinks with the level of sweetness that they prefer. Several brands said that the reduction applies only to certain menu items.
