I talked to young people from neighborhoods that are considered dangerous.

It is normal, they told me, that they charge for vaccines. This is how you get security. Security is paid for in the private citadels of high-class neighborhoods, why shouldn’t the poor also pay a little? We all want to live in peace. In our neighborhood, we are protected by group X. That’s why we put up barriers to entry. No one from the opposing group enters. And so we can circulate peacefully in our sector.

They don’t even think that before you could go out at night, play in parks without bars, and there were no electric fences or broken bottles on the walls to protect yourself from possible ascents. They simply think it is impossible.

Life can change

Organized crime outside the drug trade I

While other young people who can study at universities, in safe environments and can exchange ideas and experiences, faced with a painful reality, ask: What can be done? That’s exactly what I wanted to ask you, because creativity should be your specialty. But in general they are thinking about more security, more bars on the streets, more alarms.

They have no references for something that works well in the public sphere, in any branch of the state. And without the support of the public, positive experiences remain as patches, because it is difficult for them to influence the entire social fabric.

To sin is not political

Next, a dichotomy is set up between state and citizen initiatives.

Between those who are at the table, who think between four walls separated from what the majority of citizens live, feel and want, or vice versa, citizens who do not trust the powers of the state because corruption seems to be their motto and their actions, with slowness in procedures that lead to speeding up the process by bribing various processors, who no longer hide in the shadows.

(…) we know little about our emotions, and even less about the social fabric that unites us and at the same time separates us.

Despite the obstacles, there were proposals.

That each neighborhood has a representative of the mayor, the neighborhood chief, where the neighbors will propose initiatives: cultural, educational, necessary works. Let him be appointed by the mayor, but ratified by a vote of all residents. That minimum contribution from all families in the sector helps to maintain this service (vaccine adjustment?). That they have the authority to decide on what is urgent, and the application is made by neighborhood organizations. That there is good lighting and safe corridors. That women have emergency buttons nearby and that there are places on the sidewalks like on October 9th Avenue.

And I think that the social field has few innovators. In fact, as humanity we have not been able to overcome poverty, wars or drug addiction.

Yes, we have managed to travel through space, build incredible bridges, build huge skyscrapers, but we know little about our emotions, and even less about the social fabric that unites us and at the same time separates us.

We are afraid to question preconceived ways of doing things and run on an endless conveyor belt that leads us nowhere, like in the gym, because deep down, despite wanting to be successful, we prefer the security of the familiar, even if it is only to improve routines instead of finding solutions.

The state requires, among other things, social innovators. (OR)