My Heart Stayed on Jatobá Street
Jul 25th
On my first visit to Morro da Providência I met a man with several names including Seu Mangará, Mango do Forró, Manga Verde and finally José Pedro. He proceeded to begin a conversation with me about his grief over the cards which life had dealt him. He was referring to a specific time, 11 years, 5 months and 21 days ago, when his wife passed away.
José Pedro, or Mangará as he is better known, has enjoyed playing forró and attending barbeques with members of his community, even when there were drug traffickers controlling the community. He explained to me that More >
Destiny is an Unknown
Jul 24th
By the famous staircase beside which lie the many houses in 104-year-old Morro da Providência marked for removal by the Municipal Housing Secretariat (SMH), thousands live their lives full of dreams and expectations. Children, adolescents, young and elderly lovers of the community where they have built a their lives.
Walking through Providência, we met Viviane Neves, seated on the stairs with her youngest son. The young woman of 25 – a clothing saleswoman and community resident since birth – spoke a little of her career to date.
For two weeks she has been mourning her stepfather, Paulo Sergio, who died of muscular fibrosis More >
Missing my Providência
Jul 22nd
“I miss my Providência,” exclaimed Eron César dos Santos, who has lived on the hill for 44 years, or his entire life. A man with glasses and a burn mark on his left arm, Eron is caretaker of the Our Lady of Conception Church, on the upper right side–when using the Central do Brasil bus terminal as a reference–of the 104 year-old favela.
His father from Sergipe and Portuguese mother met in the Brazilian capital, then Rio de Janeiro, in 1950. Having searched for work in São Paulo to no avail, he moved to Rio where he fell in love with More >
Porto Maravilha and Rio’s Oldest Favela
Jul 21st
A community marked by solidarity between its residents, in Rio de Janeiro’s port area, is at risk of evictions of several of its residents. Living in this community has become a sort of family custom, meaning that parents pass their homes to their children and so on. It is a place full of character, attractions, and activities. It has almost everything! There is the traditional Brazilian Festa Junina (a party where the kids dress up as hillbillies), cruzeiro, catechism, pagode (a musical genre derived from samba), movies playing in the town square, soccer games, hide-and-seek, barbecues, and a magnificent view. More >
300 Pavão-Pavãozinho residents get eviction notices from City Hall
Jul 15th
Though favela evictions are not new to the city of Rio de Janeiro, Antonio Valmin de Sousa was taken by surprise when City officials came to his house on June 28 and handed him a notification saying that he would have to leave the place he has called home for nearly two decades. 300 other residents of the Pavão-Pavãozinho favela (resting on a hill right above the affluent Copacabana area) received the same notification as de Sousa that said their homes were marked for removal (literally ‘marked’ with spray paint) to make way for a new road through the area. More >
