Land for the Landless

Mauricei Matias with Kerri-anne

Today, Wednesday, we left the coast  and drove two hours inland onto the great plateau of Pernambuco called the agreste. Here we met with representatives of one of the world's most important social movements -the Landless Rural Workers Movement, or MST.  For more than 25 years the MST has been the leading force in obtaining land for landless workers who once had a connection to the land.  The MST has a radical methodology that has put them in direct conflict with those wealthy people who own vast tracts of unused land.

Today we met a community of people who benefit from the work of MST. One of the people is Mauricei Matias, a young mother who moved from the forested area to the Normandia Atrandol Assentimento (settlement) to start a new life. Mauricei proudly showed us her home that has a bathroom, three bedrooms, a t.v., a tidy kichen, a washing machine and her yard, where chickens, goats, fruit trees and a cistern full of water indicate a lifestyle that wouldn't have seemed possible a few years ago.

Mandela in the community garden that is part of
the Paulo Freire Formation |School. 
The mandela has a duck pond in the 
middle that irrigates a circulate 
vegetable garden and fruit trees.

What made this new life for Mauricei's family and 44 other families possible is a process that we in Canada would find very hard to fathom. Seventeen years ago the people of this settlement entered into a process that began with an occupation of many hectares of unproductive land. After a number of forced evictions by the landowner and legal applications by the MST on behalf of the community, they finally were able to claim legal title to the land. Now all around their village of 45 homes where once stood only barren land, grow fields of corn, manioc, beans and other staple crops.

Also located in the Normandia Atrandol Assentamento is a formation centre named for the great Brazilian popular educator Paulo Freire who was born in Pernambuco.  The centre includes 2 auditoriums, 2 classrooms, a cafeteria and a dormitory for 250 people. Here leaders from the 120 MST settlements in Pernambuco and like-minded groups come to learn technical skills, production skills and community organizing. After a 90 day program that includes 60 days at the Centre, the graduates of the Feet on the Ground program return to their communities to take on stronger leadership roles in their communties and organizations.

Danny