| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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As the Government’s commitment to the community was defined, as well as the Intervention Model, a plan of action to the Integrated Intervention was structured, involving the management of the work by the same team that dealt with socio-environmental issues, composed of four phases:
1st PHASE – Habitation and Urbanism – the first phase of community mobilization was directed to the preparation of dwellers to the beginning of physical intervention. It was provided a detailed registry of all families, residential and commercial realties, as well as all public equipment and social interaction spaces. This action also included the provisory removal of the families from the local where works were under way, with the concession of housing allowances or the indemnity to those that chose not to keep living at the previous place.
The first decision of the community was to build the concrete bridge. The same way, it was approved in an assembly in the community the Plan of Work, which defined that the intervention would be done in stages, dividing the Island in three parts, minimizing the removal of dwellers from their places: the Pilot Area, where work would begin, had 27 dwellings, Area I, with 129 houses and Area II with 116 houses, beside a habitation project where 78 units were built. Later on, due to an increase of demands for housing in the region, the community decided to include more 19 dwellings to the original project, totaling 369 dwellings to be build.
2nd PHASE – Education to Citizenship – The second phase was post-occupation, a work that involved the dwellers of houses built in workshops and activities to adapt to the new reality of life, with dissemination of important notions to preserve the space, houses and public equipment. These activities were focused in the endorsement of habits demanded by social interaction, habits until now unknown in to this population. Many courses were promoted, speeches and workshops to develop the feeling of community..
3rd PHASE – Sustainability and Economic Development Actions – Intending to achieve economic dynamism and income generation, that aimed at reversing the extreme poverty conditions of the community, many equipment were built and delivered to the community in order to strengthen productive activities according to the calling and profile of the region’s inhabitants. Equipment included fish processing unit, bakery and cake shop, along with bakery school, broom factory, handcraft production center, audio and video station and mini-shipyard to produce the typical fishing vessels used by the community. Also in this phase activities aimed at improving the environment were developed, with the planting of 20,100 mangrove seedlings, in an area of revitalization of 1.7 ha, besides hydric restructuring, with the drainage of the surrounding space of the Isle of God.
4th PHASE – Transference of knowledge in management and competitiveness (IN PROGRESS) – As a complement to the sustainability and economic development phase, the State Government understood that the mere deliverance of resources and materials is not enough to keep in motion the new productive equipment. It is necessary go further, developing a culture of management of quality and competitiveness in the new environment of the community. In this sense, negotiations were started with many partners and specialists in management to create models of governance, management and innovation in the productive processes initiated in the recently delivered equipment. Among these partners are the Federation of Commerce of Goods, Services and Tourism of Pernambuco – Fecomércio, the Brazilian Service of Support to Micro and Small Businesses – SEBRAE, the National Service of Industrial Apprenticeship – SENAI, the Syndicate of Bakeries and Cake Shops of Pernambuco – Sindipão and the Consultancy and Assessment in Corporate Management – Saga, among others.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The Program was led by the Secretary of Planning and Management of Pernambuco, and was supported by many other state secretaries in the stages of its implementation: Secretary for the Women, Secretary of Social Development and Human Rights, Secretary of Social Defense, Secretary of Education, Secretary of Health and Secretary of Work and Entrepreneurship.
In order to the coordinate the execution of the project the company Diagonal was chosen, responsible for the management of the Plan of Integrated Action of the Isle of God. The company had a valuable contribution in the activities of Planning, Execution, Delivery, Post-Urbanization and Post-Occupation, besides Control, Monitoring and Evaluation.
The project was conceived and is being implemented with active and direct participation of Isle of God’s community and with support from the following Non-Governmental Organizations: Integral Center Life II, Educational Center Getting to Know How to Live, Community Action “Caranguejo Uçá” and its representatives.
Other partnerships were developed in order to do many services necessary to the project, with the participation of COMPESA – Sanitation Company of Pernambuco, EMLURB – Company of Maintenance and Urban Cleaning, CELPE – Electricity Company of Pernambuco, and Sanitary Health District of the City of Recife and Ministry of Fishing and Agriculture. Those institutions helped with the development of educative actions in themes related to new habits of living and neighborliness and in interaction relationships.
Other partners, such as Brazilian Service of Support to Micro and Small Businesses – SEBRAE, Agency for Economic Development of Pernambuco – ADDiper, the Agronomic Institute of Pernambuco – IPA, the Federation of Commerce of Goods, Services and Tourism of Pernambuco – Fecomércio, the Syndicate of Bakeries and Cake Shops – Sindipão, were invited to help develop management models, connected to the fourth phase of the plan, to the self-sustainable economic development of equipment.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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The total of investments of the initiative surpassed the amount of R$ 50 million (or US$ 24.3 million), financed in its majority by the Government of the State of Pernambuco and 20% by the World Bank; 46.3 million (or US$ 22.5 million) was used in Works of urbanization, housing projects and environmental conservation and R$ 3.7 million (or US$ 1.8 million) in other activities, such as registry of dwellers, housing allowances, indemnities, design and execution of the Project of housing and re-urbanization, management, workshops, classes and other actions and products involved in the Project. The bridge Victory of the Women had its price shared, 50% paid by the State Government and 50% by the City of Recife.
The Government of the State of Pernambuco had civil servants available to manage, monitor, teach and work in Governmental Programs in the actions taken in Isle of God. Approximately 10 servants from the Secretary of Planning and Management of Pernambuco focused their efforts in the activities of monitoring and management of the project, while tens of other servants of other secretaries contributed working with important governmental programs to the intervention, such as Pernambuco in the Workplace Program, developed by the Secretary of Social Development and Human Rights – SEDSDH; Recycle Pernambuco Program, performed by the Secretary of Economic Development – SDEC; Youth in Alert Program, Drug and Violence Resistance Educational Program – PROERD and Juvenile Patroller Program, performed by the Secretary of Social Development – SDS (Military Police of Pernambuco – PMPE, Military Fire Brigade, School Emergency Brigade); Youth and Adult Education – EJA and “Paulo Freire” Program, performed by the State Secretary of Education; Rowing to the Future Program, Sport for Life Program and Great Footballer, Great Student Program, All Against Crack Program, performed by the Secretary of Sports; Women of Isle of God Program, performed by the Special Secretary of Woman; among others.
Throughout the whole process, dwellers had the Diagonal company team, permanently in the office close to the island. Two analysts of social projects, two project assistants and a trainee were available to the meetings and services to the population, besides support to families in situation of vulnerability and social risk and support to the regulation of informal markets. To the management of works, there were two engineers, one architect, a technician in home-building and a project assistant. To the environmental project there were two biologists. And, at least but not last, to articulation, planning, implementation of workshops and speeches of different themes, such as health, education, income generation and environment, the company had social assistants, biologists, agronomists, forest engineers and environmental educators.
To the works of habitation and urbanization circa 480 workers were employed. Among them, 100 inhabitants of the community were selected by the construction company that won the public bid to do the work. Other 117 from Vila da Imbiribeira, a neighboring community, were also integrated to the team.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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Important milestones:
a) The construction of the bridge Victory of the Women was the first action of the project as an answer to the priority pointed by the population. The bridge is 216.20 meters long, connects the Island to the continent. It was built to allow the population to commute safely and easily, enabling personal development and full access to the services offered by the State;
b) As for the sanitation of the Island, a set of works and equipment gave the necessary conditions for the occupation of the area. Among them: two sewage stations; piezometric water tower connected to the water supply system of COMPESA and two sewage emissaries;
c) Housing projects meant a change that discontinued a historical condition of subnormal living. 150 two-storey houses ,each with two bedrooms, were given to families that had up to 6 people. 27 ground-floor houses, with two bedrooms each, to families with up to 6 members and at least one with special needs (elders or disabled people), 4 ground-floor houses with 03 bedrooms to families with up to 10 people and that had at least one with special needs (elders or disabled), 16 mixed habitation units, that provided housing and a space to commerce. In the housing project close to the Isle of God 78 units were given to those that chose to live in the continent;
d) As an essential condition to the success of the project, environmental recovery actions strengthened the coexistence conditions with the environment, helping to foster citizenship. So, 20,100 seedlings of native species were planted in an area of 1.7 ha. Part of this area had been previously occupied by the stilt houses. With planned urbanization, approximately 1 ha of mangrove was recovered. Hydric restructuring was performed, with the drainage of the surrounding space of the Isle of God in order to allow the reopening of a channel connecting rivers Pina and Jordão.
e) Investments in the improvement and modernization of existing social equipment provided stimulus to the socioeconomic development of the community. So far, the new Family Health Unit and the headquarters of Community Center “Caranguejo Uçá” were concluded. To 2014 are scheduled the delivery of a school for 200 children, the Getting to Know How to Live Space, with bakery and Cake Shop and the Fish Processing Unit, that will benefit local production, increasing profit margins of the islanders’products.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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The Isle of God Project was chosen as one of the priority projects of the Government of the State of Pernambuco. So, it is one of the projects that are monitored by the Management Model Everyone for Pernambuco. This nationally and internationally recognized model gave support to the control of activities and adjustment in strategic decisions, monitoring the conformity and quality of actions involved in the project.
The main actions in the work plan of the Intervention in Isle of God were set, in the logic of priority targets, in timeline, and were monitored by the State Governor himself in the ordinary meetings of monitoring of the Strategic Objective Improve Habitability and Mobility, inside the perspective of Improvement of Quality of Life of the Population.
Besides, as responsible for the management of the project, SEPLAG promoted regular meetings for monitoring with the private company chosen, focused in the detailed monitoring of the many stages of the plan of action. This supervision, through Project tool, updated the Project Plan and generated detailed reports of completed deliveries, tardiness and adopted measures. In this surveillance the project was periodically evaluated by SEPLAG as for quality management, communication, scope, time, costs, risks, human resources, acquisitions, relationship with stakeholders and integration with other actors. Intervention execution control activities were distributed in five macro activities, focused on: Management Control; Technical and Administrative Support; Performance Evaluation; Quality Management; Completion of Contracts and Final Evaluation.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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The intervention model adopted by the State in the Isle of God Project aimed at allowing the settled families to foster citizenship besides physical change of urban reality, for a really new perspective of life, that was built by everyone.
In this new process of intervention, different from the traditional model implemented by State Entities, some challenges and difficulties were faced, among them we name:
a) Construction works had to be carefully sequenced because during the time each of the works were done, it was necessary to provisionally remove the local population, while another part of the community remained in their residences. These difficulties were overcome with the concession of housing allowances and periodical meetings with the community that had not been removed in order to inform them on the progress of the work;
b) Delay in some works occurred due to the option of hiring dwellers from the community to work in the project. This approach, in spite of being part of the strategy to include the community in the project, brought problems coming from the lack of qualification of this workforce. In order to minimize this problem, the Secretary of Work, Qualification and Entrepreneurship worked together with the company to qualify the workforce;
c) As the intervention was done in an island, logistic was complex. The bridge build can only stand traffic of small and medium sized cars. Transport of materials and machines needed to the work depended on the tides and was done by small boats. Because of that costs were much higher than in other housing/urbanization projects. To minimize this problem, other actions were adopted such as the drainage of channels to make it possible the navigation of small boats and the optimization of transportation according to the tides.
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