NEWSLETTER SITIÊ #02 (CLICK TO WATCH THIS VIDEO)

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1 NEWSLETTER SI I #02 Honorary Board In the last month we added another important member to our Honorary Board: Alejandro Echeverri, who created the concept of Social Urbanism and lead the urban transformation of Medellin, Colombia between 2004 and 2007, has accepted our invitation! Alejandro is also the founder of URBAM, Center for Urban and Environmental Studies, at the Eafit University in Medellin and is currently a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Visits to Sitiê We had two special groups of visitors at Sitiê this month. First, we hosted the Youth Council from Luta pela Paz (Fight for Peace), a NGO that runs a youth boxing program in the favela of Maré in Rio de Janeiro. We climbed the trail of the Caminho do Céu (Sky Path) to the Bico da Pedra, the peak of the Dois Irmãos (Two Brothers). Following the climb, the group visited Sitiê and shared experiences about our realities in a debate at the Digital Agora. We also hosted this year s class of Summer Fellows from ITS (Institue for Technology and Society) in Rio de Janeiro and had an interesting conversation with this diverse group of professionals from all around the world. Luta pela Paz ITS

2 NEWSLETTER SITIÊ #02 Wrap-up of Summer Internship with MIT/+D Two of the three summer interns from MIT working with our partner +D and collaborating with us finished up their projects with results that engaged and motivated our community. Holly Josephs presented a final report that included several studies related to Vidigal s water system, including a map of the natural water sources, 3D mathematical modeling of the water flows, results of water quality tests, research on rainfall patterns and studies of multifunctional systems for capture, purification and reuse to be implemented with the project for the Stairs + Square that will greatly improve access to Sitiê. Natural water source Local water storage Solar energy production (potential) Modeled water flows Jaqueline Kuo, who designed the curriculum and led the three classes for programming and robotics that we mentioned in the last Newsletter, made this video of highlights showing what our students learned (and how much fun they had!). Follow this link: José Esparza, the third of the group from MIT/+D, is developing a field research project for Vidigal on themes of citizenship, technology, democracy, public space and real estate to support Sitiê s Title Rights project for Vidigal and the database for the Digital Agora.

3 NEWSLETTER SITIÊ #02 Environmental Education Led by our educator Urso Santos, the environmental education activities this month were focused on the problem of urban waste. Our students, ages 7 to 12 years old, learned to identify different types of waste and separate them correctly. They also worked on understanding water as a resource and how much water different foods require in their production. Horta e Paisagismo With much care, the nursery at Sitiê is continually increasing its production. This month, beautiful couve (a hearty green) are flowering in our raised beds and they are being distributed to members of the local. It is hard to get better than vegetables taken from the earth, green and organic! (CLICK TO WATCH THIS VIDEO)

4 NEWSLETTER SITIÊ #02 To increase our production, a new area of Sitiê was cleaned and will soon be used to expand our nursery. Additionally, our team is identifying best practices for pairing certain crops that benefit from growing together and implementing various rotations to maintain the quality of our soil. Besides the nursery, the park is also drawing more and more attention for the work we undertake in landscape design. Thanks to the efforts of our Operations team, Sitiê is becoming greener and more diverse with the addition of new plant species. Our volunteer Liz Proutt is mapping both these new and the existing flora and has already identified more than 70 species! Crop pairings and rotations for our nursery. Sitiê in the Media TV Sesc We hosted the director Sergio Roizenblit his team from the program Arquiteturas, of TV Sesc, who filmed for two full days at Sitiê. The episode, which is expected to air in October on-line, will be a documentary of roughly 30 minutes exclusively about Sitiê. If you would like to learn more about the program, see the link below: Telemundo Miami The last weekend in July we hosted another team from the spanish language news channel Telemundo Miami, which is producing a short segment on Sitiê. From Vidigal to the world! We will send you the results soon! The Real Park of the 21st Century Despite being published some time ago, it was just last week that we were able to read The Real Park of the 21st Century, a wonderful text by Evert Verhagen, who participated in the Arq.Futuro Symposium the principal forum on architecture and urbanism in Brazil on Urban Parks last year in Rio. In the text, published on the site Creative Cities, the Dutch urbanist describes Sitiê as an enormous success... and...as the real park of the 21st century, ending with a call to action: Let s all invest in the favelas. They are places of opportunities and hope. We are on board, Evert! And thanks again for your visit. The full text can be found here:

5 NEWSLETTER SITIÊ #02 Campaign for Sitiê We are intensifying our Campaign for Sitiê so that we can continue to expand our activities in the park, inlcuding our operations and maintenance, educational activities, the arts + design collective, projects for democracy, innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as our capital projects. We are able to receive on-time or recurring monthly donations using PayPal (please click the link below). If you are interested in discussing further opportunities to support Sitiê, please contact us at the following parque.sitie.vidigal@gmail.com Sitiê on Social Media We recently got our 500th like on Facebook! If you are still not among them, follow this link to our page to keep up-to-date on all the happenings at Sitiê in real time! We also invite you to follow us on Please be sure to tag us and share your best photos of Sitie using the #ParqueSitiê and #Sitiê hashtags; every week we post a photo of the week and yours could be next! As we countdown exactly one year to the start of the Rio2016 Summer Olympic Games, let s continue to share Sitiê with the world! Abraços, Equipe Sitiê