Rio de Janeiro is trying to fight drug crime with the construction of a library that it hopes will win 'hearts and minds.'
? A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.
Skip to next paragraphOn a recent holiday, school children rode bikes or stretched out on park tables around this pristine library complex. Inside, all ages can watch DVDs on flat-screen TVs, take art history courses with prestigious professors, and browse tables with books on Hinduism or travel in Turkey.
What?s less apparent under these bright, high-vaulted ceilings is that they?re surrounded by the city?s largest cracol?ndia ? where scores of crack addicts huddle near armed dealers ? known within Rio as the ?Gaza Strip? for the frequency of lethal shootouts between police and traffickers.
The year-old library is Rio?s most audacious attempt to follow a crime-fighting strategy from neighboring Colombia, which promoted constructing top-quality public works in its most desperate neighborhoods as a way of winning the ?hearts and minds? of residents living under drug traffickers? control. This Biblioteca Parque de Manguinhos ? a refurbished military warehouse ? still echoes with the crackling sound of gunfire as police raid drug holdouts.
Grandmotherly Sandra Gullino works in the library?s nursery, where children learn to fold origami creations and flush a modern toilet for the first time. She says she encourages each child to get a library card, ?even though the kid doesn?t know how to read.... This is a stimulus.?
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