Posts tagged City of God
Life in the Favela: Public Security Debated in Maré
May 14th
“What is this ‘pacification’ that is coming?” challenged favela residents last Saturday May 11th at a debate on public security in Maré. For weeks, the group of communities has been undergoing daily raids by the BOPE (Special Operations Police Battalion) in a government effort to prepare the area for the installation of the Police Pacifying Units (UPPs). The process includes illegal searches of homes without individual warrants and operations involving helicopters and armored tanks.
“The discourse from the state and from the commercial media [surrounding pacification] is a big lie,” explained Gizele Martins, coordinator and journalist at Maré’s 13-year-old community newspaper O Cidadão. More >
Favela resident is ‘super plugged’ into the Internet, research says
Feb 21st
For original article by Fabio Brisolla in Folha de São Paulo, click here.
Nine out of ten residents of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro, under the age of 30, access the World Wide Web. The majority access the Internet on a computer from home and prioritize social media, such as Facebook, when online.
Internet access from home grows as cybercafés “sink”
The above statements resulted from research conducted with residents between 15 and 29 years of age, from five different low income areas of Rio de Janeiro: Rocinha (South Zone), City of God (West Zone), Manguinhos (North Zone), Complexo do Alemão and More >
A History of Favela Upgrades Part I: 1897-1988
Sep 27th
In favelas where the government steps in to do 'urbanization,' or upgrading projects, such as Morro da Providência, these works are joined by the creative improvements that residents have made to their homes over decades.
This is Part 1 of a three-part series on the History of Favela Upgrades in Rio. Click for Part 2 and Part 3.
Housing rights activists today defend the practice of on-site upgrading of informal communities—as opposed to evicting them—on the basis of historic preservation, low-quality compensation housing, residents’ location-based employment, and squatter legislation. In practice, what has caused favela upgrading to come to pass over the years in Rio de Janeiro More >
Favela NGOs rewrite social identities and combat stigma, affirms new LSE study
Sep 17th
Non-governmental organizations in Rio’s favelas that work with art, culture, sport and civic engagement provide structures that allow young people to escape a career of crime and, by actively showing that drugs, violence and crime are far from dominant elements in favela culture, challenge dominant stereotypes in mainstream society. These are some of the findings of Underground Sociabilities, an inter-institutional research project from London School of Economics with AfroReggae and CUFA. Sociability refers to the “play-form of social life and the joy and imagination that accompany the experience of the social.”
The study examines favela life and focuses on how bottom-up NGOs can “rewrite More >
Exhibition Showcases Designs for Sustainable Housing in Rio’s Favelas
Jun 26th
Original article in Portuguese published here.
Projects developed to modernize Rio’s favelas will be presented beginning Tuesday, June 26 in an exhibition called FavelaCity Exchange in downtown Rio de Janeiro. Among the offerings, based on principles of sustainability, are constructions using concrete and bricks made from recycled materials, buildings that optimize natural ventilation and light, and houses with systems to reuse rain water.
All of the proposals were created by Masters and Doctoral students in architecture at Swiss university ETH Zurich, a world leader in multidisciplinary research and education. The group visited Rio communities, such as City of God in the city’s More >
