Last Monday, January 5, a group of 11 students and professionals from the U.S.A., Canada and Europe -- participants in a cultural exchange program organized by the San Francisco-based NGO Global Exchange -- visited the classrooms of the Viva Bebê Program, recently installed at the Talavera Bruce Women's Penitentiary in Bangu. The group met with the program's director Virginia Gayoso, one of the course teachers, and a class of some 25 inmates for about one hour, before touring the rest of the facilities at the prison. Viva Bebê is a multi-disciplinary course for women from low-income communities that prepares them for work in professional day-care centers. By bringing the course to Bangu, Virginia hopes to offer inmates with short prison terms a real chance to find employment upon their release.
The visitors had a chance to ask the students about the course, their thoughts on prison life, and their hopes and doubts about their future. The students also had many questions for the visitors, especially the two female parole officers in the group. Inmates wanted to know how prison conditions in the U.S. compare to those in Brazil, and burst into applause when they learned that American prisoners are not only given $200 upon release, but are always released on the exact day they complete their sentence (in Brazil prisoners must wait for official documentation to arrive, by law no more than 45 days but in practice up to a year). On the other hand, they booed when they learned that conjugal visits were no longer allowed in California.
"This program is exceptional," said Judi, who works with paroled women in Florida. She noted that though the inmates "have no illusions" about the difficulties facing them upon release, "the program gives them hope, an alternative lifestyle to think about and to be involved in, and the beginnings of self worth." Others lamented the small size and lack of resources of the pilot project. "Viva Bebê is invaluable in helping to change the course of these women's lives," said Carl Corrigan, a student from Ireland. "Unfortunately it is touching the lives of very few. Such projects are needed on a much larger scale."
After the classroom visit, the group toured the prison, including the foreigners' cell blocks, where they spoke in English, Spanish and French to prisoners from South Africa, Cuba, France, and other countries. They also visited the prison's day care center, where recent mothers live with their newborns until they reach 6 months. Though the center was clean, it suffered from overcrowding and insufficient facilities. "We've got 23 babies here, and only space for 12," explained prison director Marcus Pinheiro.
The visitors were enthusiastic about Viva Bebê, but they were upset by the general conditions within the prison, and in particular the lack of basic hygienic products such as toilet paper, sanitary napkins, and diapers for the newborns. At Bangu, prisoners must purchase these products from the cantina, using money brought to them by visitors or borrowed from other prisoners. "This is ridiculous. It is unfair and unhealthy for the government to put 430 women in a prison and not provide them with sanitary napkins," said Bert Muhly, former mayor of Santa Cruz, California. Bert was also troubled by the lack of activities and educational resources for the majority of the prisoners. "They have nothing to do. The government has to put some energy into helping the inmates participate in some useful activity." Virginia hopes that the group's visit will focus attention on the need to expand funding for the Viva Bebê project and similar initiatives.
The group spent 10 days in Rio as part of a 'Reality Tour' sponsored by Global Exchange, which has been leading similar tours in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Haiti, India, and countries for 15 years. Global Exchange is no stranger to Brazil: in 1997 the NGO published an English biography of Benedita da Silva, Brazil's first black woman to be elected senator, the success of which led to a film in 2000. In addition to Viva Bebê, the group visited the Citizen's Counters in the Rocinha and Babilônia favelas, a landless community in Rio's rural western zone, and the headquarters of the human rights organization Tortura Nunca Mais (Torture Never Again), as well as representatives from several other NGOs. And of course, the fireworks on Copacabana beach at New Year'.
Daniela Serrina, a psychologist and the tour co-leader, said the tour gave her a new perspective on her own country. "As a Brazilian, I think the tour was as interesting for me as for the participants. I'd never visited a prison before, and talking with the inmates and seeing their day to day reality demystifies it, makes it more human. It's important is to spread the word about conditions in Brazil's poor communities and prisons -- and the social projects that try to improve them -- so that interested people abroad know how to get involved."
