Concerned about children throughout the world

CIESPI pushes for reducing violence against young children

Highlights from the projectChildhood without violence: a goal for Rio

International Center for Research and Policy on Childhood at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (CIESPI/PUC-Rio)

With the support of the Bernard van Leer Foundation

Rio de Janeiro * Brazil

July 2016

The project aims to improve the context in which young children grow up in low-income communities in Rio de Janeiro to assist their fuller and healthier development.

Young children growing up in low-income communities in Rio face serious harms that threaten their development. These harms have long term consequences for their social, emotional and economic development. Harms include high levels of violence, ill health, poverty, noise, and air and water pollution. Open sewers run down the streets of many such communities, and particularly in the hill-side communities there are no safe places for children to play. The highlights below show some of the current project activities and outcomes:

The CIESPI Early Childhood Project

CIESPI´s concerns for reducing violence against children is part of a broader goal of improving the context in which young children grow up to promote the children´s full development.

From 2012-2013 CIESPI helped facilitate a broad public and non-profit coalition to help design and get adopted by the Rio Children´s Rights Council a new policy on early childhood (PMPI), to promote the full development of Rio´s young children. The policy, which was formally adopted in November 2013, has concrete action proposals in key areas of children´s lives and can be accessed in Portuguese at:

http://doweb.rio.rj.gov.br/visualizar_pdf.php?reloa-d=ok&edi_id=00002237&page=20&search=infancia

Municipal Plan for Early Childhood PMPI | Rio de Janeiro

The challenge now is the implementation of that policy. CIESPI is engaged in a number of activities to promote that implementation. These include working with an expanded coalition to press for the implementation of specific items in the Plan.

Staff has also just completed a census of 120 safe places for children in the large, low-income community of Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro, and a a sample survey of some of those places to help figure out how to support them, increase the number of such places and promote the implementation of PMPI. The places include creches, pre-schools, cultural and sport organizations, religious organizations and community centers.

The sample survey found that the existing places provide a refuge for young children combined with critical educational and cultural activities. Such resources are a most welcome respite for young children in an overcrowded, unsafe, unhealthy community wracked by the violence of drug traffickers and the police response. But the survey also found that these organizations suffered from dilapidated infrastructure, constant financial crises, and inadequate staffing. The report ends with recommendations for improving the condition of existing safe places and the creation of new ones. The English language summary of the report will soon be available at the CIESPI website in the series CIESPI Research and Policy Bulletin.

Safe Places for Children: a Survey in Rocinha

Under the coordination of the Residents Association of Laboriaux in Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro, CIESPI has been participating in the creation of a new space for leisure and recreation for children in this massively overcrowded community. The space, close to the Association´s offices, is being transformed from waste ground into a secure space where children can play and be with people of all ages. There are almost none such places presently in the commu-nity. CIESPI helped the Association prioriti-ze this space for children and helped in the design of the area along with Norwegian colleagues and research partners.

Transforming Spaces for Children

The playground is an open area next door to the local neighborhood association and its purpose is to create a space where children can play and socialize with other residents of different ages in safety.

For the last eighteen months CIESPI team, as described above, have been conducting a census and a sample survey of safe places for young children in the Rio community of Rocinha. But CIESPI is well aware how different low-income communities are from each other in both Rio and urban Brazil and in order to understand those differences as they relate to young children has been working to select a new community with which to engage.

Safe Places for Children: A New Community

The community staff selected was Parada de Lucas in the northern zone of the city. It is a community with one of the highest infant mortality rates in the city and lacks one of the new community policing units known as Pacifying Police Unit (UPP). CIESPI team has already done two visits to the community and was hosted by community health agents from the family clinic. These agents are helping CIESPI map the places where young children 0-8 spend their time in the community.

Children in Numbers: CIESPI Data Resource

CIESPI has always pushed for the use of relevant information and data in public policy development and implementation. Part of the current reduction of violence project involves a major update of the CIESPI data resource on children and youth. The Institute has just posted in English and Portuguese important new data on the demography of young children in urban Brazil including information on race, poverty, family structure, family income, health conditions, and education.

The data resource was constructed with the assistance of the Department of Economics at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro.

This data resource can be accessed at:http://ciespi.org.br/en/children-in-numbers.

CIESPI´s Research and Policy Bulletin nº 1 - Brazilian low-income communities face Zika epidemic virus with appalling sanita-tion. Huge challenge for the olympic city of Rio de Janeiro.

CIESPI analyses the impacts of the Zika epidemic on early childhood, focusing on poor sanitation in Brazil in the series RESEARCH AND PUBLIC POLICY.

The bulletin can be accessed at:www.ciespi.org.br/en/

Ciespi launches a new series:Research and Policy Bulletin focusing on early childhood