By Sharon Abdalla, Gazeta do Povo
Brazilian architect and urban planner Carolina Nunes was among the researchers who represented Brazil at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s Annual Meeting in Berlin on Thursday (29). On the occasion, she was greeted by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and First Lady Elke Büdenbender, for whom she could present her research on Rivers and Cities.
FOTO: Walter Weingaertner
Graduated at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Carolina has been integrating the German Chancellor Fellowship program. Organized by the foundation, it is aimed at young leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and the United States, with the goal of building bridges between these countries and Germany.
“My project was born in Brazil, when I did a project of Regional and Urban Planning, taking the Itajaí River Valley as a region. Germany is the reference in renaturalization of rivers and integration of cities with nature from three perspectives: better natural conditions, more protection against floods and more spaces for the leisure of the people. So it was only natural that, looking for more training and the best examples, I would bring the research here”, says the architect.
In addition to the local examples, in the Germanic country Carolina has the opportunity to exchange knowledge with Walter Binder, who was the leader of the renaturalization projects of the Department of Water of Bavaria. The objective of the project is to know and record how the German solutions were financed and implemented, so that they can be reproduced in Brazil.
“Some of them can be implemented without difficulty, but many will have to be adapted to the local reality” she predicts. “I have also taken advantage of to develop participatory communication, working with social media and videos. The idea is that these publications are used to support the [Brazilian] public power in decision-making, as well as to raise awareness of civil society”, she explains.
The architect still has the project to create an institute to engage young people in the cause of the rivers and cities, besides promoting their exchange with Germany.
On July 18, Carolina will have a new meeting with representatives of the German government. This time, the architect and other researchers from the German Chancellor Fellowship will be welcomed by Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is the patron of the program.