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REPORTS: BRAZIL |
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Zero
Hunger Plan Attacks Poverty on Many
Fronts
Mario
Osava*
RIO DE JANEIRO, (IPS) - Although the
Zero Hunger programme launched by the
Brazilian government this year has
added little to the incomes of poor
families, authorities underline that
it is an initiative that goes beyond
mere welfare.
The project implemented by leftist
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
immediately after he took office on
Jan. 1 provides 50 reais (around 17
dollars) a month in assistance through
a credit card-style ''food card''.
But it also carries out emergency food
aid operations, while putting into
effect ''structural policies'' aimed
at combating the underlying causes of
poverty.
The food card, which is issued for six
months, can only be renewed twice,
because the idea is that during that
period, the beneficiaries will have
received support for finding a way to
support themselves on their own.
A youth and adult literacy drive, the
construction of rainwater collection
tanks, support for small family farms,
and local development plans are among
the measures included in the Zero
Hunger project, the top social
priority of the Lula administration.
In Acauán and Guaribas, the two towns
in the northeastern state of Piauí
where the project was first launched,
494 adolescents and adults have
learned how to read and write since
February, according to the Special
Ministry of Food Security (MESA).
In order for a family to be eligible
for the Zero Hunger project's
benefits, the illiterate members of
the family must take a three-month
literacy course, Luzinete dos Anjos
Gomes, secretary of education in Acauán,
told IPS.
The 2000 census found that 32 percent
of residents over 10 in Acauán, which
has a population of 5,147, were
illiterate.
Each of the students in the literacy
courses receives an incentive payment
of 100 reais (33 dollars), the same
amount paid to the teachers for every
adolescent or adult who learns how to
read and write, said José Giácomo
Bacarin, the secretary of MESA's
Community Solidarity Programme.
Guaribas, a town of 4,814 where 58.2
percent of local residents over 10 are
illiterate, was the inaugural symbol
of the Zero Hunger plan.
More than 500 families in Guaribas
applied for the programme, but only
452 were accepted, Vagner Correia
Alves, the local official in charge of
payments in the state-run bank that
deals with social projects, commented
to IPS.
''Many poor families, some with as
many as 10 children, were left out,''
lamented Correia Alves.
Among those who did not earn a spot in
the programme were Pedro Alvaro da
Rocha and his four children. However,
the unemployed rural worker receives
15 reais (five dollars) every two
months from another government
assistance programme, to cover the
cost of cooking gas.
Nor was Rocha able to enrol his
13-year-old son in the school stipend
programme, through which the
government makes a monthly payment of
15 reais per child -- with a limit of
three children per household -- to
poor families who keep their seven to
14-year-olds in school.
Gileno da Rocha, the head of one of
the 452 families enrolled in the food
card programme in Guaribas, told IPS
that he had received the stipend right
on time for the past five months.
The small farmer, who owns 15
hectares, said he was grateful for the
help, which came at a good time, since
the rains ''were bad'' this year for
his bean and corn crops.
Although he said ''50 reais for food
is very little for a family like mine,
with four kids,'' he added that
''Without the food card, there would
be more hunger in my family'' and
throughout Guaribas. Expenses for his
youngest son, a two-year-old, alone
run to 150 reais (50 dollars) a month,
he pointed out.
Nevertheless, Gileno da Rocha believes
it is ''pure coincidence'' that no
child has died in Guaribas over the
past five months -- a development that
MESA attributes mainly to the food
card.
However, the farmer said the most
pressing problem in that area, as in
much of Brazil's arid northeast, is
the lack of water, and he complained
that the government has not yet made
good on its promise to build more than
200 rainwater storage tanks.
''They have only built one,'' and
although pipes have been put in to
bring water to the town, ''the water
hasn't arrived yet,'' he said.
The installation of household tanks to
harvest rainwater from rooftops was
incorporated by the Zero Hunger
programme, but is actually a project
designed by a network of more than 750
social movements and non-governmental
organisations, which got under way in
1999.
The project, which uses local
technology, aims to build one million
rainwater collection tanks by 2007 in
the most drought-stricken parts of
northeastern Brazil, the country's
poorest region, which is home to 10
million of the country's 171 million
people.
The tanks will provide clean water
year-round to the neediest people in
the region. The Zero Hunger project
plans to accelerate the civil society
initiative with the injection of new
funds.
The Zero Hunger project is thus a
broad plan that attacks poverty
through a range of government actions,
many of which were designed and
implemented by previous
administrations, like the school
stipend programme and the Programme
for the Eradication of Child Labour.
In addition, the basic food items
distributed as part of the school
stipend programme are purchased mainly
from small family farms -- another
priority of the Lula administration.
Food cards have already been
distributed to 198,267 families in 377
villages and towns in the impoverished
northeast, and another 860
municipalities have already been
equipped to receive the cards, which
means the Zero Hunger project will
surpass its goal of reaching 1,000
municipalities this year, said Bacarin.
The programme has had to overcome a
few initial blunders. For example, it
has abandoned the requirement that the
beneficiaries show receipts that the
money was used to buy food.
But ''these are just teething
problems, and next year we will move
ahead more quickly,'' said Zilda Arns
with the National Council on Food
Security, which orients the project.
Arns is the president of the
Children's Pastoral, a Catholic Church
group that assists more than 1.6
million children at risk of
malnutrition.
The Pastoral, in which 200,000
volunteers are active, has reduced
infant mortality in poor communities
to 14 per 1,000 live births -- half
the national average.
Arns said the Zero Hunger programme is
moving in the right direction by
supporting ''structural'' projects
aimed at ''human development,'' like
literacy campaigns, building rainwater
collection tanks, and offering
identity documents free of charge to
people who in some cases do not even
have birth certificates.
The idea is ''to link the excellent
programmes that already exist,''
decentralise their administration, and
mobilise volunteers and organised
civil society, she said.
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