Safe electricity for slum residents - A pilot project in Paraisópolis, São Paulo, Brazil

The following article is the result of a discussion with Glycon Garcia providing an insight of a project of slum electrification in São Paulo, Brazil. The article is published as an eBook so you can scroll the different pages using the titles bellow. The full article is also available as a Pdf for download.

Glycon Garcia, leader of the sustainable electrical energy programme of ICA Latin America and manager of the pilot project, describes the situation in the favela.

‘Paraisópolis is situated in the centre of metropolitan São Paulo, bordering on middle- and upper-income residential areas. It lies in a large steep-sided ravine and has a physically challenging geography. It is an extremely densely populated area, with an estimated population of 80,000 to 100,000 people.

Most of its residents have migrated to this favela over the years from the poor countryside in the north of Brazil. Paraisópolis is quite literally a city within a city, with every kind of business imaginable: bars, grocery stores, hairdressers, mobile phone shops, and even shops selling building materials. But the community is completely informal and it is lacking virtually all of the usual municipal services and infrastructure.’

Millions of people all over the world are living in slum areas without a legal connection to the electricity supply. Many of them risk their lives to make intricate, illegal connections to overhead lines. These activities often result in fatal accidents and the wasting of electrical energy. In 2005, the International Copper Association (ICA) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) set up an international programme to promote sustainable electricity services in slum areas. A pilot project was initiated in 2006 in the favela (slum area) of Paraisópolis in São Paulo, Brazil.