Brazil Testimony

“Something Was Missing...”
From Homes to Community
From the desire to give a home to the favelados to the encounter with CL, discrete and fascinating: The testimony of Cleuza Ramos who, together with her husband, Marcos Zerbini, is a leader of the Movement of Landless Workers in São Paolo

by Cleuza Ramos

Together with her husband Marcos, she leads thousands of favelados in the Movement of Landless Workers in São Paolo. From her youth, Cleuza Ramos has fought together with the inhabitants of the favelas of the Brazilian megalopolis. The story of demands for justice, the collective purchase of land, the initiatives with the common people, and her encounter with CL, recounted in notes from her testimony at the Assembly of CL Responsibles in Brazil, held last February in Rio de Janeiro.

I was born a Catholic in Minas and, at the age of ten, I already was participating in groups at the parish. When I arrived in São Paolo, I went to live in a very poor neighborhood where the church was a shack. My struggle began there. At the age of ten, I got together with the old ladies of my community to build a real church. We organized parties and community dinners, and we sold used clothes–everything to build the church. I did this until I was 26 years old. I worked there, participated in catechesis, in meetings for married couples, in everything that made up the Church. I worked with those who lived on the streets, and one evening a week we distributed soup. Every Saturday, I went to the favela for works of assistance; I helped register the babies that were born. But something was always missing.

Where to start?
In 1986, the theme of the Lenten “Fraternity Campaign” [organized by the Brazilian Bishop’s Conference] was “Land of God, Land of Brothers.” The reflection booklet said, “Are you already helping those without a home, or are you only praying for God to help them?” So I said to myself, “This is for me; I have to do something.” I began to call the people of the community. I was able to gather even two thousand people in church, and I spoke to them. We organized protests, gathered signatures, and brought them to the municipality and the state government. There were people without a home, without hope, who lived in hovels, renting, or in their mother-in-law’s home, and it was a serious problem. I had to resolve the question. This is why we began the movement [Asociação dos Trabalhadores sem terra: Association of Landless Workers], which in the beginning didn’t yield any results because it was only for making demands. Then, organized into collective groups, we began to buy land where the families could live. The first was a big area, in inexpensive lots. But there was also the need for an infrastructure, water, and electricity. As soon as they settled in, we realized that these things were more expensive than the land itself. So we began to press the municipality, but they brought us to court because we hadn’t distributed the land into lots legally. Then, Fr. Ticão [a parish priest of the eastern zone of São Paolo, the most populated area] told about a community in the state of Rio Grande do Sul that had a very serious problem, and how each of them had written a letter to the governor, asking for a meeting. He thought maybe we could also do the same thing, so the next day we began writing to our governor to ask for a meeting; we sent 40,000 letters. In the end, he received us in his office, and came to visit our community. He was so enthused by the people that he ordered the water hookup, the electricity, and everything. Then, there was the school, another struggle we won, and so the neighborhood, even though it was on the periphery, became beautiful, with a school, water, electricity, and asphalted roads. But something was still missing.

“We have to do that, too!”
The Public Health Care Center was over 12 miles away, while nearby we had the Medical School of the Federal University of São Paolo. So we went to speak with the university president, who promised us a doctor and a nurse. Finally, the university sent a doctor, Dr. Alexandre, who told us that he had been sent not for clinical work but for prevention, and that he wanted to work in the school, where there were a lot of girls who got pregnant and young people who took drugs. With Heloisa, he began to work together with the teachers. I didn’t understand what they were doing, but I sensed that Alexandre was a different kind of person. He said he would introduce me to his friends, and he always talked about Giussani–from the way he spoke, I assumed he lived with him–and so a friendship grew between us. Then, one day in 2003, he invited me to participate in a meeting of the Companionship of Works in Rio de Janeiro. I went, and heard them talk a lot about young people and university–we saw that the young people of our community finished high school, but few managed to get into the university, while the others ended up jobless. A Peruvian young man said they were building a university. I left there with this thought, “We have to do that, too!” Through a friend of my husband Marcos, we went to the owner of the UniNove [University Center Nine in Julho di São Paolo] and brought home an accord by which the young people paid only 30% or 40% of the expenses. Through this idea from the Rio meeting, today almost 5,000 young people have entered the university.

Finally, an answer
Notwithstanding all this, though, I was very unhappy. I was troubled: my dream had been to build a community, and I realized that I hadn’t done so. I often said to my husband, “I’m not happy. I see this people that we have helped and that hasn’t understood anything.” I had built houses, but not community. I confided my distress to Alexandre, and he introduced me to Fr. Vando, Ulisses, Bira, Gisela, Ana Lydia, and all the people who have helped me a lot. These people have shown me the true meaning of life. In the CL Movement, I once again experience the joy I had lost. Because I have encountered something greater, now I truly have encountered happiness. Up until now, I thought, “It wasn’t worth it;” I had worked ten years in the favelas, and “it wasn’t worth it;” I had spent my entire life in the Church and “it wasn’t worth it.” The CL Movement has given me the answer that I hadn’t been able to find all my life. Now, we’re doing School of Community with Fr. Vando. I know I’m beginning to “take baby steps” and I still have a lot to learn, but with the little I’ve learned I already see today the signs of Christ, the signs of faith in this community of 50,000 people that we brought together, and that had no sign of Christ, no sign of community, only a lot of houses. I wanted to stop, but with Fr. Vando, the School of Community, the friends we have met, it is clear that this is the road. I have to continue working with the Movement of the Landless in another way, with another gaze–as Fr. Giussani says in his books–with the gaze that Alexandre and Heloisa have had for me. They made me understand that there is another road, a true road that leads to the Father and that leads to the brothers. And I would like to thank you very, very, very, very much, for having given me this opportunity to meet you, to meet CL, to give me the strength that I have today. God bless each of you. Thank you for existing, and for being part of my life today.