With the support of Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), the projectConstruindo Esperança (building hope), in Colônia Juliano Moreira, Jacarepaguá, Rio de Janeiro, was selected as one of the “20 Best Management Practices” during the 9th edition of the Caixa Awards for Best Practices in Local Management. The initiative was chosen for the social production of housing through collective practices by self-management and mutual help, including the construction of 78 dwellings.

Colônia Juliano Moreira hosts Fiocruz Mata Atlântica Campus and, for this reason, it is part of the Campus Development Program, PDCFMA, which tries to promote health, sustainable social development and environmental restoration; producing, systematizing and disseminating scientific and technological awareness; in addition to contributing to raising citizenship. The strategic purpose of local activity is generating a repository of successful experiences to serve as methodological reference for planning and execution of actions promoting health in the surroundings of Fiocruz’s units, in special those located in other states.

Through PDCFMA, Fiocruz supported the initiative from the choice of the land to the defense of the project before the PAC Colônia Management Committee, counting on two representatives of the foundation as members. “Fiocruz has been present since day one, with support to projects of social technologies aiming at reducing costs with water and electricity, support to the development of job and income generation project, support to compensating measures with landscaping project, consolidation of health awareness of the cooperative members with increased comprehension and domain on the notions and basic concepts about healthy habitat”, said the PDCFMA executive coordinator, Gilson Antunes da Silva, in an interview to the Fiocruz News Agency.

Fiotec Support

Gilson coordinated the projects “Territorial Management of Public Policies Articulation in Colônia Juliano Moreira” and “Environmental Health in Fiocruz Mata Atlântica Campus”, in force between 2014 and 2015, with the support of Fiotec, and, nowadays, he coordinates the phase II of both of them, started this year.

The territorial management project intends to contribute to the formulation, implementation, increment and innovation of integrated public policies for health, environment and sustainable territorial development, supporting the creation of models replicable throughout the country, aimed at the social and environmental sustainability, adding value to the intersectoral effort in their formulation and management.

The one related to environmental health, in turn, aims at building a healthy and sustainable territory by producing knowledge on the following subjects: ecologic restoration of the Atlantic Rainforest, production of seedlings, environmental management and education, handling and control of zoonoses.

*With information from Fiocruz News Agency