A resident in a São Paulo favela saved 600 families from eviction by transforming a 1.2-acre space piled with rubbish into a vibrant community garden.
According to the BBC, 600 families in the Vila Nova Esperança favela were facing eviction in 2006. Their settlement lacked city waste collection, and the trash was polluting an environmentally protected area. It's the classic "chicken or the egg" problem when it comes to community neglect.
So, resident Maria de Lourdes Andrade Silva, known as Lia Esperança, which translates to Lia Hope, decided to act. "I thought, 'I have to do something to not lose my home nor anybody else's,'" she said. She started by organizing community cleanups. After a court victory in 2012, she proposed the garden. "We didn't have sustainability specialists ... so we came up with the idea of creating a community garden," she told the BBC.
It was an idea that just grew. "I started out of necessity," Silva said. "I had no idea it would snowball this far." That garden became a full community hub, complete with a library and kitchen, providing food security for over 200 families.
Resident Batista Santos joined after losing his job. "The space today is marvelous and beautiful ... It's really changed my life," he told the BBC.
This "trash-to-treasure" model is popping up everywhere. In Boston, a coalition is turning abandoned lots into edible food forests. Another story from Leek, England, shows how two residents, fed up with a local "disaster," turned a dumping ground into a garden. Even entire cities like Copenhagen are using green roofs to become "sponge cities" that can better prevent flooding.
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For Vila Nova Esperança, the garden was their lifeline. "If it wasn't for the garden, they would have been able to get us out of here," said Cícera Maria Lino.
Folks on Reddit also loved it.
"This is absolutely beautiful!!! I really think this is the way to go when it comes to developing underprivileged communities," one Reddit user wrote.
Another added, "It was stressed that it works for this favela because the entire community was involved in the decisions."
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