Casa Chama: Committed to Dignity and Prosperity For All Trans People

To utilise resources most efficiently and effectively, GiveOut works alongside and supports existing funding organisations with geographical, thematic or community expertise, who have particular expertise in the funding and activism landscape in the given context and established working funding mechanisms with which we can collaborate. This is why since our inception, GiveOut has partnered with the International Trans Fund (ITF), a participatory grantmaking fund made up of trans activists and donors with a goal to fill the resources gap and lack of funding provided to trans organisations globally. Each year, ITF selects a trans organisation in the global south to be the beneficiary of a GiveOut grant, and in 2022-23 that organisation was Casa Chama. We invited the International Trans Fund’s Programme Officer, Viviane Simakawa, to interview Casa Chama about their work and the context they are working in.

How can trans-led movements and organisations thrive, when they work in contexts of hostility towards trans people, especially in the intersections of race and class?

Casa Chama, an Association that was founded in 2018 and is based in São Paulo city, Southeastern Brazil, attempts to answer this question with work in various areas, including one that has been a critical social concern in the city: the public health issue of substance abuses, and the social consequences of the militarised war on drugs that has violent impacts in areas like the ‘Cracolândia’, a massive concentration of people in downtown areas for drug use and trafficking.

In the following interview, I talk with two of Casa Chama’s co-founders and leaders to learn about their current work, changes in the organisation, and resourcing for trans groups and communities.

Hello there! I am Viviane Simakawa, one of the International Trans Fund’s programme officers, and I am delighted to share with you some highlights from the conversation I had with Matuzza Sankofa Santos and Digg Franco, thanks to the kind invitation made by GiveOut.

Viviane: Matuzza, Digg, thank you again for this conversation. May we start with a brief presentation of both of you and your trajectories?

Digg: I am Digg Franco, a white trans man who has a background in Graphic Design and History of Art, and who has been involved with political and cultural articulations in the city of São Paulo. As I was committed to the foundation of Casa Chama in 2018, arising from political meetings was the ‘Vira Voto’ campaign, an action against Bolsonaro’s election. We founded Casa Chama with partners from these political collectives, artists, self-defence instructors, permaculture folks, and residents who visited our space – which was, in the beginning, this art studio shared by me and artist Cinthia Marcelle. We began by connecting my previous experiences in the arts with initiatives that promote resources and quality of life for trans people, and this has been one key focus for me. 

In the beginnings of the collective, we were an LGBTQI group of people, but with my transition and the welcoming of trans people for shelter and collective living in that space, we decided to focus our actions on trans artists, with the support from allies (gays, lesbians, heterosexual folks). With time, we also understood that it was not possible to be so specific in terms of professional affinity profiles (e.g., artists), much less in our actions (focused on culture, at that time). I usually say that today we do everything (legal support, economic autonomy, psychosocial support, content creation) because we lack everything. We have been working hard to promote the presence of trans people in all spaces.

Matuzza: I am Matuzza Sankofa Santos, born in the state of Minas Gerais, and I am a Black trans woman who faced hardships since adolescence when I was expelled from my home. After moving to São Paulo city and being welcomed by Travas da Sul, a travesti-led collective, and by the organisation ‘É de Lei’ where I worked on harm reduction strategies, I was introduced to Digg and Casa Chama. Afterwards, he invited me to participate in the registration of Casa Chama in 2020, to work for prosperity and well-being for all trans people.

Viviane: What are the main challenges that trans communities are currently facing in Brazil, in your experience?

Matuzza: Our challenges are situated, particularly, in critical spaces where marginalisation, violence, and abuse are overwhelming – prison systems, contexts of drug use, homelessness etc. In São Paulo, we have the intersections and inequities of race and class in one of the largest cities in the world, in one of the most unequal countries in the world. This has only been aggravated with the pandemic, and, with the years of Bolsonaro and his transphobic, racist politics in power, not to mention the conservative local powers in the state of São Paulo. These processes were concerning for all Brazilian trans and travesti people, but in those critical spaces and these intersections, we had terrible consequences.

Digg: And, noticing this aggravating pandemic scenario, we saw the need to formalise and co-found Casa Chama as a Civil Society Organisation, to contribute to answering these challenges… ways for the trans populations to access their dignity. During this period, we were able to organise individual contributions into a collective fund of BRL 142,000 (slightly over USD25,000), we obtained grants from GiveOut, established a partnership with Volvo to distribute food baskets, and provided other support to trans communities. From that moment on, we changed from an organisation focused on culture to one dedicated to psychosocial support and provision of basic needs, areas in which Matuzza has great expertise. We have been working in many areas to attempt to provide resources for them, and that was an important drive for the creation of the organisation.

Matuzza: It is worth mentioning that during the recent period, with the expansion of the Cracolândia in São Paulo city (one critical, dynamic area in downtown São Paulo which has a large drug use scene), we observed an exponential increase in the numbers of Black, poor, marginalised LGBTQI people living on the streets and in contexts of substance abuse. We then decided to prioritise our work for these people – if they have the means to access their dignity, to obtain resources with respect and consideration, even with all the unjust marginalisation that they face, then it means that all of us are closer to having these accesses as a society, as a whole. Recently, we have intensified our services in that area: between 2022 and 2023, we created a management model for the first LGBTQI shelter in São Paulo outside of the capital, in Araraquara, and we opened our Community Center, which supports approximately 200 homeless trans people twice a week in São Paulo city.

In that, we have accomplished a lot over recent years: four festivals completely dedicated to trans people, a congress on trans healthcare; partnerships with local public healthcare services to include trans-specific care in their work; publication of a trans-focused newsletter; legal, mental health, psychosocial support for many trans people in topics like employment, suicide prevention and housing needs; among other activities.

And, within the strengthened focus on the most vulnerable homeless trans travesti populations living in downtown São Paulo, we have been working on the basis of the harm reduction perspective with them, offering resources and support structures that could make their lives better – this includes basic rights to food, capacity-building activities, medical, legal and housing support. That’s a key area of work for us, now.

Digg: This is a great summary of what we do… I would only add that we, as Casa Chama, have always regarded formative work, capacity building work, both for the trans community as a whole and for ourselves as an organisation. Many, many tools are lacking for all of us as trans people: from knowledge to professional experiences, mainly in relation to finance and management… bureaucracy expels marginalised people. We have grown a lot and quite fast, and we are learning that some projects might not be worthwhile, as they take significant time and resources from us, who are not equipped with a strong financial infrastructure. We have little support for our institutional work, therefore we face challenges in hiring people dedicated to this area – despite that, we keep our purpose of placing trans people in roles and spaces that were not imagined for us. We are still working collectively on many internal policies, in decentralising our decision-making with a Board, among other internal work. From the beginning, we looked for partnerships to advance all of these objectives, despite the challenges that are related to the precariousness in our communities.

Matuzza: Some examples of this internal formation process include the development of work in mental health support and access to employment, as well as working on the institutional strengthening of Casa Chama, in a way that allows leaders and members to work in the best possible conditions. 

Viviane: Why is it so important that resources exist for organisations like Casa Chama, who work to protect trans people in their contexts of life and advance their rights?

Matuzza: I believe that our movements are doing so much with the few resources we have access to… can you imagine what would be possible with more? But beyond this aspect, I think that the uncertainty and, not rarely, desperation about the lack of resources and the urgency to mobilise them, makes the funding to trans movements something very critical. Trans activists are dealing with a lot and suffering when they do not have enough to support their communities, or when they are faced with the reality of needing to cut programs, lay off staff or reduce the amount of supplies that are so needed for them. 

Viviane: What do general support grants, or unrestricted funding, mean to your organisation?

Digg: Here in Brazil, we have possibilities for brands to sponsor projects, public calls and even parliamentary amendments, but almost all of these opportunities – particularly in culture – do not include fixed costs or are short-period projects that take considerable time and dedication, making our basic infrastructure vulnerable. General support guarantees these fixed costs in the long term, giving us security and also making it possible to cover unforeseen events or to invest in opportunities. I have dedicated a lot of effort to opening the first LGBTQI endowment fund in Brazil for Casa Chama – our ideal world would be to have enough in it so that the income generated by the fund could guarantee basic infrastructure and staff costs so that we stop suffering from these cash fluctuations that leave us very emotionally fragile. We had to take a collective break as a team at the end of the year, to ensure our existence until the arrival of funds to be received in mid-2024. These are very difficult decisions to make, as our team is also trans and the majority of them are in a vulnerable situation. In that sense, receiving funds that are based on trust and an understanding from the funder is essential.

Matuzza: These kinds of resources are so important to provide means to do innovative work for trans communities, and they also raise our profile as an organisation seeking partnerships with public and private institutions. As I mentioned earlier, these funds also help organisations to continue doing critical work for trans communities that, for many reasons, might not be adequately funded. 

Viviane: What are your hopes and desires for trans communities in Brazil?

Matuzza: We believe that the growing visibility that trans, travesti, and non-binary communities have had in the Brazilian context is a given; but I hope, and desire, that such visibility is connected to more access to healthcare and legal services, to educational opportunities and so many other things. Visibility in itself does not overcome the needs and urgencies of many trans people – so many of them still need to have their ID, an ID that respects their gender identity, and basic needs from food to shelter to proper healthcare.

Digg: I would like trans children to be able to exist with more freedom and respect, and that in their youth they are not affected so early by a non-secular State that is so conditioned by cisheteronormative standards. So that we – “community and activists” – could deal less with traumas and instead access other places of evolution, autonomy-building, and developing subjectivities. In short, we could have better mental health, physical safety and quality of life; employment, leisure and housing. We truly hope that Casa Chama is a small part of this process, of connecting trans visibility to equity and justice for all trans people, and being a hub for initiatives and work to promote the dignity and well-being that we all deserve.

You can find more about Casa Chama’s on their website or social media.