As Forças Das Favelas - Classroom Version

Rio de Janeiro is known as "the divided city"

It is a term that was coined about the reality of Rio de Janeiro

The revolution has already begun... I think that we

can exist in the vision of the city, and no longer

as a "divided city," as though the favela doesn't exist.

We have to glue together the informal part

of the city, to the formal part of the city,

We have to integrate, unite.

Because everything that comes out of the favela

goes into the rest of the world, and that's where that concept of interconnectedness

cannot be denied, and so I think it's also

important for people to get connected to the fact that

there is a lot of poverty in the world, that there's massive urbanization in the world,

and this where the favelas are coming from. Now we have 80, 90% of our population

living in dense urban situations, and most of these are slum situations.

And they're growing, and they're growing...

"Favela" is a word that's Brazilian Portuguese that represents

communities, or shantytowns, or informal communities that have over time

become more and more formal because of their concrete structures here in Brazil,

but effectively there are similar places all around the world.

Serious problems of exclusion for young people, issues around confidence and schooling,

teaching young people that they can't rather than they can.

Most poor people are in the favelas, most black people are in the favelas,

most violence among young people is in the favelas,

most lack of infrastructure is in the favelas.

It has to be done in the favelas so that that these people, and their kids

in the future deal with less problems than they are dealing with today.

So I think it's about making urban centers whole

and trying to find ways to include those excluded areas into the mainstream.

If we have a state that's deficient in the provision of its services,

and you have a problem in your face, what capabilities and resources

do we have to use to turn this problem that we have into something

that can be useful and positive for the community?

The biggest growth of cities in the world is going to be in developing countries and for the first time

in human history, more people are living in cities than not in cities

and favelas are the segment of cities that are going to grow the most

so it's very special to have this kind of innovation here and hopefully the elements and the sequencing

that came together can be disseminated and adapted somewhere else

to be developed, in Rio, in Brazil, and around the world.

Rio de Janeiro has 1.4 million people living in favelas, in informal housing.

That is 22% of the population of Rio de Janeiro.

So it's not correct, it's not dignified that this huge number of people

be stigmatized for living in informal housing. This is part of the history of the city.

We have over 1020 favelas in the state of Rio de Janeiro, over 780

within the municipal area of Rio de Janeiro, and favelas are part of the city.

The favelas of Rio de Janeiro are at least 100 years old, the first was Providencia,

but they grew in the middle of the last century,

basically because of a migratory influx from Northeast Brazil, a part of Minas Gerais.

This process also affected me, I am from the Northeast.

That was a world that I knew well and so I increasingly

seek to find different types of solutions.

It is a chaotic thing, the city grows in a chaotic way

and the communities started to manage themselves, organize the space

in the way that they could.

Only that the community didn't have a way to expand.

It started to expand vertically, so the roofs of the houses served as foundations.

Instead of expanding the house, the (roof) became the foundation for another house for another family.

Now, to translate favela as "slum," I think is a mistake.

When you enter the communities, you will find

very well-structured houses, very well constructed,

with all types of internal comfort.

There is water, electricity, telephone, internet.

It wouldn't be a "slum."

It would be more like neighbourhoods that don't have public services,

that are not regulated by the government.

Various realities exist within the same favela, and various realities exist from favela to favela.

Each community has its own reality.

This favela is more than 100 years old, and if you ask someone if they want to leave here,

they would say, "No, I don't want to leave here."

Some favelas are associated with poverty,

extreme poverty, as we see in Maré, Manguinhos, etc.

Now, other favelas have social cycles

of generations, years and years...

I am the third generation.

If the media shows that the resident is simply studying, developing a project,

this does not bring a lot of attention, but if they show cases of violence, shoot outs,

comparing a favela to a war between two countries,

the number of deaths, this does get a lot of attention

and the result is that it shows other countries, other people

that it is violent here, but it's not really like this.

Before I came to live in a favela, I used to watch soap operas when I was in Senegal.

I saw how people were from the soap opera,

they put the focus just on how miserable are people, how poor are people.

So I always had an idea about the favela: favela is a place that is unsafe, that has drug dealers

that has this criminality and so on.

So you would never think that if you come to Brazil

the best place to stay is in a favela.

But when I came here I really changed my mind,

and I used to say that whoever wants to know Brazil should come to...

-of course, visit Ipanema, go to the other Brazilian nice places-

but if you want to really know Brazil, you should also visit at least one favela.

When I arrived here 20 years ago, Rio de Janeiro was a city that everyone loved for its beauty

but it had an aspect that was obviously in decline, and this lasted for a long time.

We got used to turning on the television to see the new tragedy Rio de Janeiro presented,

each one more barbaric than the previous.

And this is very connected to a question of public security

that is much more complex, it is not only a question of

police repression or controlling these armed domains

but involves a series of social questions.

Some time ago, a new security policy emerged which is the UPPs,

the police units in the areas that before were areas dominated by gangs

and clearly outside of the sphere of public authority in Rio.

It is a very controversial question, the UPPs

but from my perspective, extremely positive.

The program has existed for four years,

it makes it possible for the favelas to have an opening never before seen,

at least not in the twenty years that I have lived here following this matter.

I have the impression that before the pacification the work would have been more difficult because of the local violence.

I think there is a certain romanticism of what drug trafficking was,

I think that drug trafficking continues to exist.

The mission of the UPPs- the Police Pacifying Units

is NOT to eradicate the drug trafficking industry.

This was never the objective.

I think that what couldn't keep happening was the ostentatious display of weapons,

that trivialization of laws, because we need public security here also,

just as we have public security in the asphalt (formal city).

I think that many problems could be avoided if the police had a different attitude,

less warlike, less militarized, and more humanitarian.

I think that they don't need to be so militarized, you don't need rifles up here!

We are not in a war!

So I think we need public security, just as we need public utilities,

just as we need housing, and everything that any other part of the city has.

It's every citizen's right.

The city is passing through a moment of transformation

and it is interesting that, regardless of the motivations,

whether it's the Olympics, the World Cup, the oil,

but somehow the issue of favelas has been brought to the table.

I act where the state does not invest.

A person from the community, that was born and raised here,

has a different power than someone coming from the outside.

Our greatest enemy is hunger, unstructured families,

the lack of infrastructure, open sewage systems, the lack of water, the issues of electricity, trash...

So I think it is a time of learning not only for communities but for NGOs as well.

We learn a lot from them (the communities).

I would improve the sewer system because it is leaking,

the pot holes on the street,

and I would put another bus stop, people have to climb Rocinha to catch the bus,

and I would circulate more buses through Rocinha, there are very few.

Look, something I would change is transportation, the first thing.

And the second thing is a bank, which we don't have here.

But transportation is the worst of all.

Here we improvise a lot. The people improvise in order to survive.

We have a saying here in Brazil that we sell lunch to buy dinner,

and it is more or less this. We endure during the day so that when we arrive home,

our families have a little more comfort.

But tomorrow is another struggle, a battle, and this battle doesn't end.

There are still serious human rights violations

mainly of women and children... children that are exploited for domestic labour,

kids that are not in school,

and we cannot close our eyes to these situations.

From the moment that citizenship arrives, that you pay taxes,

you can start making demands.

Before this was a lawless territory.

The state didn't come, the state didn't participate.

They knew that there were human beings here but

they didn't treat them like humans; they treated them like trash.

Today no, nowadays the state has a different perspective

which is directly conditioned by NGOs and global entities that have realized

that human beings exist here, that they are part of Rio de Janeiro.

I always felt I was part of the city, even when there was drug trafficking,

I never thought of myself as different from them.

But I want them to see me as equal, as a resident of the city.

Here you have professionals of high quality in all areas

you have good builders, bakers, pharmacists,

students with post-secondary education,

there is everything in the community.

But these people weren't given the right to feel like professionals

because they live in a poor place.

As soon as you live in a poor place, you are a terrible baker, a terrible builder, a terrible anything

because you don't exist when you live in that place.

So in the Third World, people are valued by their address, by their appearance, by their connections.

They forget that actually you are measured by the fruits of your labour, if your labour has value or not,

this is how you will be measured.

Communication today, mainly through the social networks,

is able to give us strength, we are able to mobilize

The social networks today, for me stopped being

an informal chat between friends or a search for people.

I think that we can work professionally, work for a greater cause,

a social objective, to mobilize, to prompt reflections, to provoke debates,

shape opinions, and to construct these opportunities.

The time is right for us to implement, within the communities and within Rio de Janeiro itself,

a more positive view, less hostile,

and one of individual liberty,

so that people can have the right to realize their dreams.

This is what it means to be a citizen.

From the moment that you can't dream, that you can't realize your dreams, you aren't anything.

You are a prisoner, you don't have bars,

but the bars of poverty, oppression, prejudice, are blocking you.

Why does living in a favela have to be a marginal life?

Why can't we transform this place into a dignified space to live?

The favela has culture, the favela has different ways of life, that can teach us a lot.

There are many values in the favela,

and the favela can stop being a problem and start being a solution.

My life story?

My life story, well I was born and raised in Complexo do Alemão.

I lived my whole childhood here, it was a good childhood.

At 14 or 15 years old, I got involved in drug trafficking

where I used to buy food for the drug dealers, I was carrying weapons, transporting drugs.

I spent many years in this.

I lost my childhood, I lost friends.

In the drug trade, I discovered literature, I discovered books.

That's when I dedicated myself to studying again.

I started to like books, it was a way to free myself from what was happening in the community.

What took me out of that life was education.

I think that we need to change the paradigm of education in Brazil.

We have to see education as an investment in the future.

Perhaps you or I will not see the results of this,

but certainly my children, or my grandchildren, will live in a more just world

if we invest in education today.

To change this idea is very hard,

but it is a challenge.

In education, we need a lot more daycare centres.

We have 4 or 5 daycare centres constructed for the community,

but this does not meet the needs of 140,000 inhabitants.

We only have one high school which cannot support the whole community.

If the kid can't be a soccer player, what will he be? He needs education.

This is the foundation of everything. As Monteiro Lobato said,

"A country is built with men and books."

Here our country is built with men and guns, and books are left to the side.

For me, the main thing is education.

it is what brought me here today.

I am here today because of education.

If not, only God knows where I would be today.

The most exciting thing is to hear the stories of the students

because of the excitement of the child.

An example, which is so exciting! The kids have a lot of difficulty with division.

But when the child understands division- I had a kid that fell off her chair!

Because she was so excited, she finally understood something that didn't make sense before!

Folks, no kidding... The child might never return to tutoring,

but something will stay with her.

One day I was taking my oldest son to school

and a little girl of 4 or 5 years asked me two questions.

The first was, "Are you a ballet teacher?"

And the second, "And when will you give me classes?"

And for the first time in my life I entered a favela,

a favela full of armed people, where drug trafficking dominated the community,

and I offered to volunteer, and I started giving classes to 12 girls.

And there were more than 100 children wanting to do ballet classes.

So I saw that alone, I wouldn't be able to provide all that these children needed.

These children were victims of domestic violence, exploited in child labour,

sexual abuse, and many other violations.

The ballet classes were a fun space for these children, but they needed much more.

From the moment we founded the institution

we started to broaden the support, not only for the kids but for their families and for the community.

Usually, these extra activities are just for people who are really rich.

So you register your kids in a swimming pool to do some swimming course,

soccer course, volleyball course, ballet dance course,

Imagine if poor people want to do the same, and pay. They will not be able to afford it.

But here we let them live as they are, in the same level as every kid in the world.

So we understand that only education can transform a person's life, regardless of where they're living,

where they were born. What matters is where they want to go.

We want to decrease social exclusion through these opportunities

and for equality to be achieved through education.

I've run a project in Morro dos Prazeres, in the Central-South Zone, for 11 years.

It is called Colectiva Galera.com.

It is a series of transformations. I was a dancer for many years,

and so I started with a dance group in Prazeres.

I didn't want to recruit talents, nothing like that,

I wanted to use art as a dimension that is capable of making huge transformations

in the world of these boys and girls.

After came galera.com, which is a nucleus of audio-visual and graphic design.

This group had great difficulty with literary expression,

but they had an incredible visual capacity to express themselves.

So I wanted to work with this talent that is also art,

and be able to give them a means of expression based on their realities.

I think the idea was to use DJing and music as a form of media, of self-expression to get the word out.

Of course, to showcase the life in the favelas.

I have always been about showing people the other side.

I think the biggest thing that really upsets me,

and why I got involved tourism as well,

was to show the other side, to show that favelas are not these garbage pit holes

of just crime and bad people and drug dealers and murder...

You know after a while we get tired of this idea.

I had a personal tragedy, I was rescuing a kid

that died in my arms because of drug trafficking

so I wanted to do something to change the future of these youth.

They had too much idle time, they would be a tool for the drug traffickers, or worse things.

I matured and saw that through Jiu-Jitsu I could attract young people to my martial art.

These kids have a different mindset today.

No one talks about guns anymore, no one fantasizes, "I will be the best gangster in the world".

Before it was like this.

Now they only talk about Jiu-Jitsu, Jiu-Jitsu, Jiu-Jitsu, 24 hours a day.

I started Luta Pela Paz (Fight For Peace) primarily to access and engage young people

that are involved in drug trafficking.

Rio has a serious issue with young people's involvement in armed groups

who dominate communities like Maré.

Unfortunately this is a problem that affects almost all favelas across the city.

So in the beginning I think it was an instinctive response to a very tragic situation,

and that was my instinctive response.

I was walking in a community, I literally turned a corner and walked into a young person

holding what I later learned was an M16

and instead of immediately being terrified, my first thought was, what a tragedy, this is terrible

what a waste of life for a 13-year-old to be in a sitaution like this.

Fear definitely came later, but that was the initial response.

So it was an instinctive response to "What can I do about this situation?"

I had been boxing as a young person, I knew the power of boxing

in terms of engaging and accessing young people that don't traditionally go to other sorts of projects.

So as a first step that's what Luta Pela Paz was, it was a boxing club that had

what was called a citizenship class at the time

where young people would have a chance to discuss and form opinions

and learn about cognitive thinking processes.

We are developed as beings living in green spaces, and we feel instinctively the need

to have more of that in cities around the world.

I think it is very special here because it has been done by the citizens of a favela in a developing country.

Favelas have high density, low presence of autos,

low carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions.

If you make infrastructure better, education, health, security,

it could be a model of sustainability for developing cities around the world.

So I think this is the most crucial time to start working on environmental issues

because after that they will start to become more like the formal city

where it's really hard to change the way we live,

so I think this is a really good opportunity to start imagining new ways to live in a city

and live in harmony with the environment.

So the idea here is to remove the trash.

The focus and philosophy of Sitiê is to "liposuction" the land,

to remove the surface trash and dig out the trash from underneath.

It's not like the guy who only to removes some trash and leaves.

Our philosophy is to clean the land, to "liposuction" the land so we can plant.

From there emerged recycling, landscaping, vegetable garden, fruits,

and later there will be environmental education, to educate the children with gardens.

But first thing is to clean the land. We want to transform what is ugly into something beautiful.

To transform a dump into a paradise like this one.

Our project aims to diminish trash in the community.

Reciclart works with dry trash, but in the beginning,

it wasn't successful because people don't value trash, right?

So the idea of Reciclart in 2013 is to make handbags of milk cartons

which will be produced for the gay community, the LGBT community

and the bags will have written phrases against prejudice, against homophobia, against violence

and the idea is that we work with our community.

I saw on TV that this was the dirtiest community in Rio de Janeiro.

My friend Nivaldo and I were outraged by this.

Caramba! We live in the dirtiest place in Rio de Janeiro

and we aren't doing anything to change this, man?

And so far we have changed the awareness of the people, which was our primary intention,

to throw trash in the proper places, to start to clean the community.

Today, we see that trash, in fact, does bring problems,

but the whole problem is not just the trash, it's the logistics; it is what to do with the trash.

The absence of public authority is very notable here in the community.

We thought about it, because I am a musician and like to compose,

I made music to raise environmental awareness, and played it on the community radios.

People passed by, "Oh the music is playing, don't throw trash on the ground, let's throw it is in the correct place."

People picked up the trash and threw it in the correct place.

When there were places where people didn't hear it, we had this...

This little sign that we tore down after the political campaign

and we started to put these signs in the alleys of the community, saying,

"Folks? Throw trash on the ground? NO! NO! NO!"

It was an awesome idea, and also used recycled material.

So if the government supported these initiatives,

we could create healthier communities, a healthier Rio de Janeiro.

If I had money, I would invest in this project

because it is a project that is working, we are replicating and it is succeeding.

And there are a lot of young people that came for the sport and are now in the Brazilian Team Selection,

just like I am, because of the project.

If this project didn't believe in me, where would I be, since age 14?

I could be in jail, I could be dead.

And today my goal is the Olympics.

Today, what is lacking, not only in Brazil or Rio de Janeiro,

is the bridge between international investors and local projects.

I think that the financial return, which is a thing that donors are worried about,

the social impact of their investment,

I think that for the investor, to have this guarantee of the local social project,

this bridge, it serves as a seal of approval.

I think the return for the investor would be greater

by investing in a local project that bears fruits.

You get a chance to experience these local social projects.

Because otherwise, how would Canada, Indonesia, Thailand know about a project in Brazil? And vice versa.

The beauty of having this local-global thing going on, is these networks. You know,

we're all living in this kind of cyber world where we can access people and resources like that from anywhere.

A big characteristic of this work is to form partnerships.

We never had any support, we've worked for 11 years without... Well, support, no, we've had a lot of support.

Many people have got involved in this, but we never had sponsors.

So what we've accomplished is because of what we call NGIs...

...Non-Governmental Individuals- which was a play on the term NGOs.

It was one step above volunteering, but below the complexity of an NGO,

and these were the NGIs, and any person that could collaborate in this way did.

We put it all together and from there created a large mosiac

that impacted the lives of tens and hundreds of kids throughout the years.

There is a direct channel to talk with us here in the institution,

you can contact us via the website and we can exchange ideas and see what is the best way to help.

Sometimes people think that they can't help, "Oh, I don't have financial resources."

But it goes beyond financial resources. Sometimes a letter for a child,

volunteer work can make all the difference.

Understand the following: people, let's not try to reinvent the wheel,

let's see what is already happening locally and try to help these local initiatives.

Another important thing is that the NGOs often work with the potential of the local resident.

It is interesting, the NGOs are closer, talk more with the resident.

The state is a little further away in this sense.

When they develop projects, often it comes from the top down.

The NGOs already communicate more with the local resident,

and start to discover the ability of the resident to develop the project.

I am not going to be able to change the world.

But if I can do a small part for my people, that already will be doing a lot.

Even without financial support, sponsorship, I think that the work has to proceed like this.

And it's also around saying, "What can I do as an individual, what's that instinctive response that I can do?",

which was my first step into Maré, "What do I understand?"

Well, I know boxing, and I know that having boxed in a number of places it's a great way to talk to young people.

So what should I do? Let's set up a boxing club here with a social focus.

I'm not saying that everyone has to do a similar thing,

but potentially they could find out another organization in communities near to them

that need their support and need their time. It could be an hour a week.

That makes a big difference.

I want to take advantage of this interview, for people to hear this, and come to talk with us.

Come to visit the projects here in the community, the goal of each project,

sit down with us, see our proposals and what we have done without help from anyone,

our own initiative, our outrage wanting to change our community.

The idea of the NGIs- the Non-Governmental Individuals- is a two-way street.

It is an affirmation of this connection, our shared values,

greater than one-time donations which only exist for a limited time.

We need one-time donations for sure, we always need resources

for the ideas that are never-ending in this creative group.

But the most interesting kind of support that can be offered

is the visibility of their work outside of the country, outside of Rio

outside of their own favela, and also learning about experiences from abroad.

This exchange is the greatest benefit we can have.

We see that there are people with the same objectives

that need the opportunity to meet

in order join forces and really strengthen

what is happening in my, your, our area, and in our world.

Something that the community, all of us are learning is the following:

If we don't come together, there is no possibility (of success).

Being informed and being educated, inform yourself, find out what is really going on.

The information that you are being told on television may be real, it may not be.

And the idea is this: it is to unite the city, to weave people together and strengthen this social network.

I think that we can share the tools that we have,

the expertise that we have gained here, we can replicate it in other places, in other countries, in other states.

We've learned two fundamental points.

First, always give a chance to the improbable.

The improbable is not the impossible.

Sometimes, there is possibility when we think there is none.

Another lesson that we can pass on,

not only for Brazil but for other communities around the world,

is the power of outrage.

When the human beings lose the power to become outraged,

because of human rights violations, wars, and oppression, they lose the essence of their own being.

A person who has the power to become outraged, is moved by an energy, a force,

to allocate resources, to mobilize people, to unite forces in order to change the situation.

When we lose the power of outrage, things stop. The world doesn't evolve.

This was a collective learning here in the institution.

So the multiplication of this outrage promotes the unity of people,

and when you can unite people for the common good, you have a huge transformative force.

I think we are in a moment of new paradigms, the 21st century.

What worked in the 20th century won't work anymore in the 21st century.

What we are seeking is no longer money, it is no longer financial gain.

I think that we are starting to find another truth.

The right to come and go,

the right to choose,

freedom for children to play, to run in the streets.

The majority of houses don't have space, don't have a yard,

so the kids play, run, enjoy the school holidays.

Before, at least in my time, the community did not have this freedom,

to fly kites, to play soccer in the streets.

These are rights.

There are many good people here.

The best thing inside this community is its people, our community itself.

The sense of solidarity is very strong.

One helps the other, a neighbour is always concerned

about whether their neighbours have food or not.

If there is smoke in a house, everyone worries if there is a fire,

if someone fell asleep with a pot on the stove, if there's an iron plugged in.

It's a sense of unity and solidarity that sometimes is missing

in many places of the country, even in the world.

.