Bom Menino Park source of pride for Sao Luis’ residents

What seems to be an impressive, circular facility, the Parque Do Bom Menino (Bom Menino Community Recreational and Environmental Park) occupies four hectares in the middle of this small but bustling, northern Brazilian city and has its own indoor playing space, police post, a medical centre, an audio visual room and snack area. There are also recycling workshops at the park for the city’s residents. And, then , there’s the Green Room which is used for environmental research by the city’s students and other residents.

At the health clinic, trained medical staff do dengue fever and other medical tests on persons as part of their social service to the wider community.

Hung up on the walls inside of the main, oval shaped, administrative building are many environmental pictures about the world’s wild regions and wildlife. The rooms in the administrative building are used for community classes by Sao Luis’ residents.

Recycling facilties are also available at the park for children who take some of their old toys to be recycled there.

The park is bordered by a main road, by what appears to be a secondary school and other large buildings.

Funding for the Bom Menino Community Recreational and Environmental Park comes from the Alcoa Foundation of which its Brazilian aluminium corporate subsidiary, Alumar, also provides financial assistance.

The park’s administration says that the institution is currently under a three-stage development phase, with the first stage already being completed and the second stage to start soon.

The Sao Luis City Hall maintains the park with 12 park employees doing the landscaping work.

Perhaps the most outstanding sight at the park is the towering, 100-year- old Barrigudeira tree which is aesthetically pleasing to many of Sao Luis’ inhabitants.

The Barrigudeira also provides them with shade from the island’s tropical heat and is home to several birds that nest in the tree’s uppermost branches.

Students also plant trees around the park where visitors can walk along wide, tree-lined, concrete walkways within as natural an atmosphere as possible.

All of the trees in Bom Menino Community Recreational and Environmental Park are old, magnificent specimens which seem to symbolise the pride that Sao Luis’ society has for its green, rural heritage.

According to park administrators, the major objective behind creating the park was to change the city’s landscape which it appears to have done.

The large, indoor athletic arena provides a space for the city’s residents to play sports such as indoor football, volleyball and basketball, just to name a few.

The park managers say that many people, including families, visit and walk in Bom Menino Community Recreational and Environmental Park because they feel safe with the police post and 24 hour security guards stationed there.

According to the managers, before the Bom Menino Community Recreational and Environmental Park was built, the area was a dangerous place but now, it’s very safe.

Criminal activities in the immediate area, they said, has been reduced.

When asked for information on how the park’s existence has reduced crime, one park official said they had no information on this.

She said they had no complete data to show how the park had reduced crime but that it did do so.

Bom Menino Community Recreational and Environmental Park seems to be where nature and urbanisation meet and coexist harmoniously.