Prefeitura do Recife
The Pitch
Recife City Hall (Prefeitura do Recife) created community peace (COMPAZ) centers that provide services and activities to underserved residents in an effort to reduce violent crime and promote social cohesion.
The Problem
Violent crime in marginalized areas of Recife fractured communities and made conditions in public spaces unsafe.
The Process
- Distributed 1,500 questionnaires throughout the community to assess community needs and neighborhood priorities and used this feedback to develop COMPAZ centers
- Held public consultations before the construction of each COMPAZ, informing the program’s collaborative approach
- Included services and activities for residents of marginalized areas in COMPAZ centers
- Used the arts, sports, psychological support, conflict mediation and education to help people work on personal growth, civic engagement and raise awareness
- Used a hyper-local community-building model
The Impact
- Registered 50,000+ people to the COMPAZ network
- Provides access for ~10,000 monthly visitors to technology and books: COMPAZ centers have a total of three libraries, all with computers and internet access, and over 30,000 books
- Catered COMPAZ centers to local needs, offering different services depending on the localities’ characteristics:
- COMPAZ Miguel Arraes emphasizes maker culture with robotics, digital animation courses, Arduino workshops and computer classes; provides courses in dance, theatre and cultural management through the Department of Culture; and has a theater that seats 125 people
- COMPAZ Ariano Suassuna has a COMPAZ Atelier that trains participants in income generation
- Promotes citizen-oriented urbanism and empowers underserved communities with the goal of reducing neighborhood violence
- For example, of the 536,559 services provided by COMPAZ Eduardo Campos in 2018: 40,643 were related to personal rights; 61.03% of registrants were female, 45.5% youth and 449 elderly; 27% received family stipends and 341 had some form of disability
- Made COMPAZ centers widely accessible and available: 88.62% of residents live in neighborhoods within a 1-kilomter radius of a COMPAZ center
- Supports members of society that often struggle to access services and programming
