Flood brigades and rehabilitating a river

How the church and local community are responding to flooding caused by plastic in Recife, Brazil.

Written by Seren Boyd | 05 Jul 2023

Géssica Dias runs the Clean River, Healthy City (Rio Limpo Cidade Saudável) campaign in Recife, Brazil, where plastic pollution regularly causes the river to flood. Image: Mocah Films / Tearfund

Recife’s plastic-clogged river is a symbol of much that is wrong in its community, but a local church is showing people how to live in harmony with nature and one another.

Coqueiral Baptist Church takes its mandate to seek and save the lost very literally.

Every year, its neighbourhood floods: the plastic-choked River Tejipió that runs through this part of Recife in north-east Brazil is overwhelmed.

When the floodwaters rise to dangerous levels, the church’s Flood Brigade swings into action. Trained rescue teams take to their boats and seek out those whose lives are in danger.

The plastic-choked River Tejipió that runs through this part of Recife in north-east Brazil is overwhelmed. Image: Mocah Films / Tearfund

In May 2022, when floods and landslides caused devastation in the Recife region, the Flood Brigade rescued 420 people from their homes. Pastor José Marcos and his team also sheltered 80 people on the church’s upper floor, despite its ground floor being flooded.

In the days that followed, they supported 2,000 families who had lost almost everything in the flood, providing food, clothes, cleaning materials, beds and mattresses. They even set up a field hospital with 33 health workers to care for people’s physical and mental health.

‘It was literally a military operation,’ says Pastor José. ‘Without a doubt, if it wasn't for the church, we would have had many more deaths.’

A community overwhelmed

As well as throwing lives into turmoil, the frequent floods highlight the knot of complex issues that entangle this area of the city, where Coqueiral Baptist Church is based.

As Pastor José puts it, the choked River Tejipió is a symptom of ‘the breakdown of social order’.

Poverty and poor urban planning mean people have had little option but to build homes perilously close to the river. The lack of any municipal bin collections means that people have nowhere to dispose of their waste: the river is not only clogged with plastics, it is a dumping ground for every kind of rubbish, from furniture to dead animals.

So when the rains come, the riverbanks soon burst. ‘With any rainfall above 60mm we have flood damage here,’ says Pastor José. ‘That’s the same as less than one hour of heavy rain.’

Pastor José is determined one day he will be able to fish in the River Tejipió, just as earlier generations did. Image: Mocah Films / Tearfund

Residents’ calls for dredging have long fallen on deaf ears. Problems such as unemployment, poor education and violence draw little outside attention either. Life here is precarious.

Coqueiral Baptist Church shares these problems. The Instituto Solidare, which is its development wing and a Tearfund partner, exists, in Pastor José’s words, to ‘address the structural problems experienced by the community more effectively’ and bring change. Here too, it focuses its efforts on the river.

Clean-up campaign

Five years ago, the Institute set up its Clean River, Healthy City (Rio Limpo Cidade Saudável) campaign, which social worker Géssica Dias coordinates.

The campaign has two targets: the municipal authorities and the community itself.

Its advocacy calls on officials to provide better waste management – including recycling – and take their share of responsibility for the state of the river.

There have been protest walks along streets that are regularly flooded, and a petition calling for municipal action and offering proposals developed from a series of community ‘listening forums’.

‘The river is not their enemy. It is not entering their house to torment them. It is as much a victim as they are,’

Géssica Dias, Recife, Brazil.

And they’ve had some success: the authorities have begun a river cleaning and dredging programme and started creating a floodable park. A people’s forum comprising church leaders and community members – many of them women – now meets regularly with officials.

Crucially, the campaign is also working closely with local people to help them understand the need to protect the environment and their responsibility to care for the river too. Church and community members have cleaned part of the river themselves – and dumping has reduced.

Gradually, their relationship with the river is changing, says Géssica. ‘They begin to understand that, in fact, the river is not their enemy. It is not entering their house to torment them. It is as much a victim as they are.’

Living in balance

Pastor José is determined one day he will be able to fish in the River Tejipió, just as earlier generations did.

For that to happen, he believes, people need to learn to live in harmony with nature. In Recife, this starts by tackling waste. More widely, it means recognising there is no such thing as waste.

‘Humanity needs to stop consuming plastic,’ he says. ‘Our planet can no longer bear these crazy amounts of waste. Throwing out is throwing in because we only have this common home to live in. Rubbish is a social cancer, a problem caused by our arrogance.

‘But we can solve this. The big corporations can help us, first by asking for forgiveness and making amends, but then by educating society. World leaders need to listen to the voices telling them, "Our planet can't take it anymore," and immediately implement policies to eliminate pollution and solid waste.

‘There was a time when we didn't throw things away. My grandmother lived her whole life without creating any rubbish. So we can go back to that: there is nothing more we need to learn.’

For Géssica, solving these structural issues, rehabilitating the river, both bear witness to God’s restoration plan for the world.

‘Our main message is bringing a river that is almost dead back to life. We want this river, as well as other creatures of this earth that are in need of reconciliation with God, to be restored, to be renewed.’

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Written by Seren Boyd

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Flood brigades and rehabilitating a river