São Paulo – The city of Campinas, 95 kilometres away from São Paulo, will have a new environmental and leisure area, the Yasser Arafat Park. A 200,000 square-metre plot previously covered with garbage and will now have 10,000 trees, a food square, event facilities, a bicycle lane, and a steam train. The park will be inaugurated by the city’s mayor, Hélio de Oliveira Santos, on Saturday (31st).
The park’s name is a tribute to the Palestinian head of state deceased in 2004. According to the superintendent of the Jerusalem Institute in Brazil, Ali El-Khatib, who supports the project, the tribute is being paid not only to Arafat, but to all Palestinians, who live in a quest for freedom and territory. “The area, which used to be totally degraded, has now become a pleasant environment,” said Luiz Granzotto.
According to him, on the park’s left side there used to be a huge slum crossed by a river that used to overflow when it rained, posing a threat of contamination to the community. By means of the project, the families have been removed to popular housing units.
Due to its very large size, the park is being built in phases. In the first phase, the Campinas city hall was responsible for the planting of 5,000 seedlings of native trees, such as Tabebuias, Jatobas, Jequitibas, Jabuticaba trees, Pitanga trees, and Jeriva trees. In the next phase, another 5,000 seedlings will be planted. The differential of the planting is that some of the work is done by semi-open detention inmates.
According to information supplied by the city hall, in the first phase, aside from environmental recovery, 800 metres of fences have been installed to prevent garbage disposal, a three-metre wide sidewalk has been built, and the prolonging of the steam train tracks has been concluded.
In the second phase, a bicycle lane should be built. “Boulevards, a food square, a child leisure area and event facilities will be built as well,” said Khatib.
The tribute to Yasser Arafat will be paid by means of a memorial in the park. A sculpted image of the former Palestinian head of state is already at the site. It reads: “Yasser Arafat – Nobel Peace Prize: ‘The Justice of the cause determines the right to fight. I am a rebel and freedom is my cause.”
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
