Centre for Applied Human Rights
Renato Paulino Lanfranchi
Brazil, CAHR, Autumn 2014
My name is Renato Paulino Lanfranchi, a social activist, coming into being as a full-fledged human rights defender. Born in Italy in 1956, I have lived and worked in Brazil for the past 23 years. My practical engagement with human rights began in the 1990s when, working as a Roman Catholic missionary priest in Northeastern Brazil, I was part of the creation of the Herbert de Sousa Centre for the Defense of Life (CDVHS). My inspiration was coming from the positive changes taking place in the Catholic Church worldwide since the Vatican II Council and the new theological developments it stirred up, especially Latin American Liberation Theology.
In my years as a missionary priest I combined inner-church ministry with social activism to promote the basic rights of the underprivileged and enhance the quality of their lives by calling on government to provide basic services like education, health, public housing and sanitation. I carried out my ministry in low-income outskirts communities in different Brazilian cities. Working with other religious and lay community leaders, we carried out hands-on, grassroots community activism based on human rights awareness-raising programs, networking and community organizing with a view to bringing about social inclusion and full-fledged citizenship of the most marginalized. In this context I was once arrested and soon released thanks to the intervention of some human rights lawyers while taking part in the occupation of a vacant public building by homeless families.
While working in São Paulo’s east-end outskirts, I helped establish and promote the Sapopemba Human Rights Centre (CDHS, 2001) and volunteered as a board member and fundraiser of the Centre for the Defense of Minors (CEDECA, 2000-2007). Our collective efforts resulted in a significant reduction in police brutality and extra-judicial executions of poor, black youths and an overall lessening of violence in our area.
In 2007 I took the decision to leave the priesthood, but not my commitment to the poorest, to social justice and human rights. The following year I married a prominent human rights defender from São Paulo, Valdênia Paulino Lanfranchi. We shared the same aims and goals in life. She had been the target of personal attacks and intimidation by São Paulo’s corrupt policemen and would later suffer death threats in the State of Paraíba, in Brazil’s Northeastern region, where we moved in order to serve in the Oscar Romero Human Rights Centre (CEDHOR, 2009-2013).
CEDHOR is a small local NGO, located in a very low-income neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital João Pessoa, which offers direct legal and social assistance to the public, promotes human rights awareness with youth, women and community leaders, monitors public policy and provides legal defense for victims of child abuse, domestic violence against women and the elderly, and police brutality. As the coordinator of CEDHOR I ran human rights training projects, did fundraising, and edited the quarterly bulletin. As a member of the Paraíba State Human Rights Council (CEDH/PB) I took part in inspections in detention centers to detect and report ill treatment and other violations of basic rights. I co-founded and coordinated the Santa Rita Public Policy and Budget Observatory (2011-2013) which does the monitoring and reporting on misuse of public money and neglect in basic services to the population.
The guiding principles of all of our activities are the defense of life, the enhancement of human dignity, the implementation of human rights and the promotion of conscientious “citizenship” and participation of the unprivileged in the building of a fully democratic and just society. While working at becoming professional human rights defenders, we strive not to lose our personal engagement with the grassroots, living and struggling with the local community for social change.
I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to accompany my wife, Valdênia, in the CAHR Protective Fellowship Scheme. We will devote our time here in York to building a comprehensive plan for grassroots human rights education that we will implement once we return to Brazil.