Favela Orgânica (“Organic Favela”) is an initiative launched in late 2011 by Regina Tchelly, who decided to share her love of cooking while improving nutrition and sustainable food practices among favela residents in Rio de Janeiro. Tchelly’s specialty: the use of natural ingredients that people generally discard, such as banana, watermelon, and passion fruit peels, carrot leaves, and cauliflower and broccoli stalks. Weekly workshops held in Morro da Babilônia, the favela in southern Rio de Janeiro where Tchelly lives, combine instruction in cooking, sustainable urban agriculture, and composting practices with meals featuring tasty, healthy dishes like watermelon peel risotto and banana and passion fruit peel cake. Learn more.
Submitted by Catalina Gomez — Wed, 10/17/2012 – 01:00
Among Latin American countries, Brazil has led the way in addressing climate change in the region, notably by creating a national public policy framework to guide priorities and interventions in the field. Some of the most relevant advances include the approval of the National Policy on Climate Change in 2009. In the same year, a National Fund for Climate Change was established allowing the allocation of resources for climate change adaptation and mitigation initiatives. Brazil has also moved forward in reducing the deforestation process of the Amazon forest and has been successful in developing and expanding the use biofuels, areas that have placed the country in the global sustainability spotlight. Learn more.
Submitted by Catalina Gomez — Wed, 10/10/2012 – 01:00
O Museu de Favela – MUF é uma associação privada sem fins lucrativos, de interesse cultural e comunitário que atua no museu territorial integral formado pelas favelas Pavão, Pavãozinho e Cantagalo. Desde sua criação em 2008 o MUF desenvolve processos museais experimentais de modos de trabalho inusitados, plantando novos paradigmas no campo da museologia social brasileira. A visão de futuro é transformar aquelas favelas em monumento turístico carioca. A missão do MUF é realizar tal visão de futuro, transformadora de condições de vida local, através da cultura, e demonstrar que a solução de inclusão funcional urbana e socioeconômica sustentável de favelas deve partir de dentro delas.
Submitted by Catalina Gomez — Sun, 10/07/2012 – 01:00
In little more than a decade, Catalytic Communities has become an active voice in promoting a more educated understanding of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. CatComm (as it is usually called), a nonprofit organization established in Rio in 2000, aims to integrate the favelas into the wider society and generate greater knowledge about their rich cultural and social value. To accomplish these goals, it actively promotes capacity-building initiatives among low-income community leaders and youth, as well as conducting neighborhood visits and research. Read and discuss.
Submitted by Catalina Gomez — Fri, 09/28/2012 – 01:00
Brazil’s fight against HIV/AIDS has been widely recognized as a success story. In the course of the worldwide, thirty-year battle against the epidemic, this country has managed to control the spread of HIV/AIDS with highly active and open preventive campaigns while providing universal access to treatment to all HIV/AIDS patients. The most important aspects of Brazil’s success in fighting the epidemic have been, first, the government’s strong leadership and support to HIV/AIDS programs, at both the national and the municipal levels; second, the active mobilization of civil society and non-governmental organizations, which have helped to promote support at the local level. Read and discuss.
Submitted by Catalina Gomez — Thu, 09/13/2012 – 01:00
Until very recently, only the better-off neighborhoods in Rio were able to explore local cultural life and entertainment options online. Today, however, it’s possible to get updated and geo-referenced information about the region’s history and cultural life, as well as where to shop and eat in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods — such Complexo da Mare, Complexo do Alemão, Santa Marta, Pavão Pavozinho, and Cidade de Deus. All this is possible thanks to an initiative called Wikimapa, created in 2009 by Rede Jovem, an organization that has been working for more than 12 years to promote social inclusion among low-income adolescents though the use of technology. Read and discuss.
Submitted by Catalina Gomez — Tue, 09/04/2012 – 01:00
Vidigal, a low-income neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro’s Zona Sul, is enjoying an important economic and cultural transformation. One of the most inspiring projects contributing to that change is Sitiê, an initiative started by three neighborhood residents who decided to recover 300 square meters of a former garbage dump and transform it into a park. Sitiê has expanded, with a small orchid vivarium and a room for recycling trash; the most impressive thing about this initiative, however, is that it is based entirely on neighborhood support and collaboration. Read and discuss.
Submitted by Catalina Gomez — Fri, 08/31/2012 – 01:00
Seeking to address a growing need for vocational education in the favelas and to reduce the digital divide between the formal and informal city, the Developing Minds Foundation (DMF) has been working in Cidade de Deus, Rocinha, and Mangueira since 2006, partnering closely with local community-based organizations to apply their extensive knowledge of each neighborhood’s conditions and needs. Learn more.
Submitted by Catalina Gomez — Sat, 08/25/2012 – 01:00
It has been hard to miss Rio de Janeiro’s changing approach to public security — the “pacification” of urban territories previously governed by drug-trafficking organizations. In just under four years, Rio’s policia de pacificação (“pacification police”) have installed 26 pacification police units, affecting more than 300,000 people, in the low-income favelas where state presence has always been tenuous. The permanent presence of the police denotes a new kind of governance that provides public services to what were once deemed ‘illegal’ communities — which not only has enhanced feelings of security, but also has fostered greater connectivity between the oft-excluded poor and the state, reducing urban disparity in the process. Learn more.
Submitted by Graham Denyer Willis — Sun, 08/12/2012 – 01:00
Rio de Janeiro’s informal settlements, or favelas, have enormous infrastructure gaps that range from the need for better roads and sewage systems to lack of access to water and electricity. In 2010, Rio’s Municipal Housing Secretariat launched a new municipal upgrading program, known as Morar Carioca, at an estimated total cost of US$4 billion, aiming to urbanize some 250 of Rio’s favelas through 2020 as part of the legacy of the 2016 Olympics. Such a goal seems idealistic, but given the city’s operational experience in the implementation of Favela Bairro, it may actually be achieved. Learn more.
Submitted by Catalina Gomez — Thu, 08/09/2012 – 01:00