At the end of June, just a couple of weeks after so many of our friends and activists across Belfast were burnt out, displaced, or threatened from their homes by racist pogroms, members of PPR’s Take Back the City team travelled to Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Throughout our week in Belo Horizonte, we learnt from activists, community leaders, and researchers about the success of these government initiatives as well as their failings, and we met some of the grassroots organisations filling the gaps left behind.

The week-long trip was organised by Change Stories, an international research partnership that shares stories and learning between Belfast, Bogotá (Colombia), and Belo Horizonte, exploring how different cities approach sustainable urban development to meet the needs of marginalised groups. PPR colleagues had previously travelled to Bogotá as part of the Change Stories programme, getting valuable insights into the Care Blocks there—neighbourhood-based, women-led hubs that aim to reduce the burden on unpaid carers throughout the city. Belo Horizonte, Brazil’s third-largest city, has gained global recognition for its success in tackling food insecurity, with the municipal government regulating market prices of healthy food, promoting urban agriculture, and directly providing subsidised meals and food banks. Throughout our week in Belo Horizonte, we learnt from activists, community leaders, and researchers about the success of these government initiatives as well as their failings, and we met some of the grassroots organisations filling the gaps left behind.

The first day of the Change Stories week was a chance for representatives from the Bogotá and Belo Horizonte teams to present to the group about developments in their cities, what sustainable urban change meant to them, and how their organisations had helped guide this change. Unfortunately, almost three full days of travel disruptions meant that more than half of our Belfast team missed this first day, but they came ready to learn on day two!

What was once a few hundred tents has now grown into a neighbourhood of self-built homes, shops, community centres, and even a creche which is run and operated by residents of the occupation.

Day two of the programme was the first of our site visits around the city of Belo Horizonte. We visited two urban occupations on the outskirts of the city, both supported by the Movimento de Lutas nos Bairros, Vilas e Favelas (Movement of the Struggle in Neighbourhoods, Villages, and Favelas), or MLB—a social movement in Brazil that organises urban occupations of vacant buildings and land in protest against housing inequality. In the morning of that second day, we visited Ocupação Eliana Silva (Eliana Silva Occupation), named after a prominent human rights activist from the Maré favela in Rio de Janeiro. A sign at the beginning of the occupation states that 350 families have occupied this land since April 2012, when families facing homelessness, housing inequality, and unemployment moved onto this vacant, ex-industrial area of public land. What was once a few hundred tents has now grown into a neighbourhood of self-built homes, shops, community centres, and even a creche which is run and operated by residents of the occupation.

In the afternoon, we visited the nearby Ocupação Paulo Freire, named after the Marxist philosopher; another public, ex-industrial site where families organised by MLB have lived since 2015. In this occupation, we visited their incredible urban garden, where they grow a huge variety of produce to feed the local residents. We had lunch on a football pitch in the centre of the occupation, eating delicious potatoes, salad leaves, and other veggies grown just a few metres away from us.

For a movement at home that is moving towards ‘Ná hAbair é, Déan é’ rather than waiting for the state to step in, it was inspiring to see a movement fighting for housing equality by taking matters into their own hands and providing homes for their community themselves

It was hard not to see the parallels between these MLB occupations and the work of the Take Back the City campaign, particularly around the Mackie’s site. For nearly two decades, PPR’s housing activists have been campaigning for public housing to be built on public land. In 2015, while homeless families in Belfast reported on the vast amounts of vacant public land that social homes could be built on, families 5,000 miles away in Belo Horizonte were also identifying vacant land to occupy.

As PPR activists lose confidence in the state to meaningfully address the housing crisis, the campaign for social housing on the Mackie’s site has focused increasingly on community alternatives built from the ground up—literally, when it comes to urban community gardens like Gairdín an Phobail. For a movement at home that is moving towards ‘Ná hAbair é, Déan é’ rather than waiting for the state to step in, it was inspiring to see a movement fighting for housing equality by taking matters into their own hands and providing homes for their community themselves.

Belo Horizonte is described as a “world pioneer in governance for food security” after a 1993 Municipal Law established a commitment to food sovereignty.

The third day was an opportunity to visit some of the food security initiatives provided by the municipal government, for which they have gained global recognition. Belo Horizonte is described as a “world pioneer in governance for food security” after a 1993 Municipal Law established a commitment to food sovereignty. We visited one of the municipal food banks, as well as one of the ‘People’s Restaurants’, where residents of the city can enjoy free meals, completely subsidised by the local government.

In the afternoon, we visited another urban occupation, this time right outside the city centre, and learned about some of the limitations of the urban development for which Belo Horizonte has become so well known. We visited the Ocupação Pátria Livre (or Free Homeland Occupation) and heard from some community activists about the state’s constant attempts to displace the residents of the occupation and the nearby Pedreira Prado Lopes favela to build out the ‘planned city.’ Right on the edge of the city centre, this favela is a ‘nuisance’ to the local government and city planners, who want to tear down these self-built homes and businesses to build new houses and apartment blocks. Citing concerns about landslide risks in the area, they have been successful in knocking down some parts of the favela close to the city centre. While the local government built some new apartment blocks for these displaced residents, they were not suitable for the majority of the families living there to move back into, and many members of this community have been permanently displaced to the outskirts of the city. The Ocupação Pátria Livre was started, in part, to house some of those displaced by this gentrification of the favela—another example of residents of Belo Horizonte taking control of the housing system themselves when the state did not adequately provide for them.