Responsabilities and Activities of Councilor João Mendes de Jesus
Elected with 20.005 votes, politician João Mendes de Jesus gained a seat in the City Council of Rio de Janeiro on 1 January 2009. Leader of the Republic Party of Brazil (Partido da República do Brasil – PRB), Councilor João Mendes de Jesus is responsible for the coordination of representatives of the PRB in the Legislature, as well as being the General Secretary of the party in the state of Rio de Janeiro.
An activist in the fight for social-racial equality in Brazil and Rio de Janeiro, Councilor João Mendes de Jesus has pledged that the Afro-Brazilian population of Rio de Janeiro may have access to social benefits guaranteed to all Brazilians by the Federal Constitution and consequently pave the way for Afro-Brazilian to have the right to attend good quality schools and, consequently achieve positions in the work market, as well as being attended by the State in a public health system that sufficiently befits the citizen who is the primary contributor to the payment of taxes which sustain the public setor.
In order to realize these aspirations, Councilor João Mendes de Jesus has addressed public audiences with the aim to discuss and debate the position of the Afro-Brazilian in Brazilian society and their history, as well as the fundamental strategies that may allow Afro-Brazilians to finally participate, integrally, in Brazilian everyday life, with regard to racial equality and the right to full access to citizenship.
Conscious that society will not reduce its social inequalities; Councilor João Mendes de Jesus prepared the important Resolution Project nº 16/2009, which created the Permanent Commission for Ethnic-Racial Equality. The propostition is in the legal process to be verified by the City Council of Rio de Janeiro and today is being analyzed by the Comission of the Defense of Human Rights. The approved project will enable the City Council of Rio de Janeiro to effectively debate the questions of humanity of Afro-Brazilians, as well as how they are treated as an institutional form, so that in the present and the close future racism may be defeated and social-racial inequalities may be transformed into equal opportunities.
President of the Permanent Commission of the Elderly, Councilor João Mendes de Jesus has pledged to improve the conditions of the lives of elderly people in the local authority of Rio de Janeiro, concerning the verification of nursing homes, denouncing violence against the elderly as well as putting into effect fundamental guarantees of the elderly established by the Statute of Elderly.
The Councilor was Federal Deputy of Brazil from 2003 to 2007, the highlight of which was participation as official of the Science and Technology and Tourism and Sport Commissions.
