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Brasil de Fato •

What's happening in Niger: inside the struggle for independence in the African country

"Homeland or death, we will win." This imposing sign stands in the Place de la Patrie, one of the cradles of the popular struggle against France in Niamey, the capital of Niger. Today, it serves as a meeting point where people gather, chat, and watch the movement on Boulevard Zarmaganda, home to the headquarters of the first popular committee supporting the Nigerien army.
Brasil de Fato •

Brasil de Fato film about MST cocoa premiered at a festival in Mexico and will be broadcast on TV

The documentary film Terra Vista, produced by Brasil de Fato in partnership with the University of California in Santa Barbara (UCS), premiered on Wednesday (25) at the eighth edition of the Hispanic American Meeting of Independent Documentary Film and Video: Contra el Silencio Todas las Voces. The event runs from September 20 to 28, 2024, in different Mexican cities.
Brasil de Fato •

Braskem hinders relocation of families affected by tragedy in Brazil, making residents get sick

“Nobody wants to stay here. Why do I have to?” Arnaldo dos Santos asks summarizing the angst residents in the Bom Pastor neighborhood feel. That’s one of the areas affected by Braskem’s crime in Maceió, the capital city of Alagoas.

Arnaldo, a nurse, lives in Beco do Sargento, part of the Bom Pastor neighborhood, about 1,8 km from mine Number 18, which was on the cusp of collapse in December last year, one of the 35 mines exploited by Braskem in Maceió. There, the families live exactly on the dividing line between what the Civil Defense considers or not a risky area subject to relocation due to ground sinking. The biggest environmental crime in an urban area in Brazil affects 20% of the Alagoas’ capital city.
Brasil de Fato •

South Africa goes to the polls: challenges and memory on the 30th anniversary of Mandela's election

On May 29, South Africa will hold the most unpredictable elections of the post-apartheid era. The African National Congress (ANC) party has won every election since 1994 and managed to retain a majority in parliament. However, unemployment and rising poverty, especially among young people, cast doubt on the party's continuity in power.



The polls take place in the year South Africa marks three decades of Freedom Day. April 27, 1994, was the date of the first democratic elections i...
Brasil de Fato •

Vale company benefited from violations against the Gavião Indigenous people during the dictatorship

On February 28, 1985, the Vale do Rio Doce train passed through the Mãe Maria Indigenous Reserve in southeastern Pará state for the first time. Of the 892 kilometers of the Carajás Railroad, 17 are within the territory of the three subgroups of the Gavião Indigenous people: Kyikatejê, Akrãtikatêjê and Parkatêjê.



Cutting through Indigenous and Quilombola lands, as well as twenty-two conservation units, the railroad was built in the early 1980s as part of the Grande Carajás project...
Brasil de Fato •

"We are replaceable for the system," says teacher on back-to-school related deaths

For the families of teachers killed by covid-19, all that’s left behind is longing. "It is too painful, because everything has the smell of the person. It is not only his physical body that has left, it is a part of his story", says Erismar Nunes de Oliveira emotionally. She is a teacher for the state of Amazonas’ public school system.

Her brother and fellow teacher, Erivonaldo de Oliveira, died at the height of the shortage of oxygen tanks that befell the state in January. The federal govern...
Brasil de Fato •

Lack of land demarcation hinders indigenous access to public policies, vaccine

“There is no health clinic in my village, because they say that the land has to be demarcated in order to have permanent buildings. So, how are we going to have a basic sanitation infrastructure? The families' income depends a lot on arts and crafts, amid in the pandemic, we can't even go out to sell them”.

The testimony of Neusa Mendonça, deputy chief of the Rio Pequeno Tekoha Djev’y indigenous community, located in the town of Paraty, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, reveals unequal treatment towards indigenous peoples by the Brazilian government according to the legal status of the territories they inhabit.
Brasil de Fato •

The drama of Brazilian mothers who lost their aid: "It destroyed people's lives"

In Grajaú, located in the southernmost part of the city of São Paulo, women from the Jardim Gaivotas Settlement are emblematic of the impoverishment and lack of job prospects faced by many, after the government’s emergency aid ended.

"It destroyed our lives. Today we have what to eat, tomorrow we don’t know. Today we eat lunch to have dinner. Or we don’t even eat to let the child eat. Because it’s very bad, your child asking for milk and you not having any to give "
Brasil de Fato •

Families struggle to rebuild communities 5 years after dam bursts

Five years after Samarco's crime in Mariana (MG), families in the districts of Bento Rodrigues, Paracatu de Baixo and Gesteira - the three communities most impacted by the mud released by the ruptured Fundão Dam - still do not have somewhere to call home.



“People have already died who will not see their homes rebuilt. And many will end up dying without ever seeing that”, laments farmer Antônio Geraldo de Oliveira, while walking among the buried chairs and children's books at the...