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140 ACTIVITIES—CULTURAL PERFORMANCES, SOLIDARITY ECONOMY FAIR, HANDS-ON WORKSHOPS, CHILDREN’S ACTIVITIES, DISCUSSION AND HEALING CIRCLES, FAVELA MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS, AND AGROECOLOGICAL CUISINE—COME TOGETHER FOR A POWERFUL DAY IN DOWNTOWN RIO.
Unmissable! On Saturday, October 18, 2025, Rio de Janeiro’s Sustainable Favela Network (SFN) will fill eight spaces at the iconic Fundição Progresso in Lapa, downtown, for our second major public event—free of charge and open to all. Following eight years of activities and the success of our first edition in 2024, don’t miss this major solutions festival! Bringing together residents from 100 favelas across Greater Rio and their solutions to the climate crisis, the event will feature 140 activities, including artistic interventions, workshops for adults and children, discussion circles, film screenings, exhibitions, booths, a fair, therapies, and more.
2nd Sustainable Favela Festival: FAVELAS AT THE CENTER OF CLIMATE SOLUTIONS
October 14, 2025—This Saturday, October 18, the 2nd Sustainable Favela Festival – Favelas at the Center of Climate Solutions will take place at the iconic cultural center, Fundição Progresso, in the heart of downtown Rio de Janeiro, from 9am to 5pm, featuring eight large spaces with 140 socio-environmental activities from 100 favelas and their allies, all free of charge and open to the public. People of all ages and from all parts of the city are invited to learn and share ideas, breaking down historical barriers and recognizing the power and potential of Rio’s favelas.
Favelas Set Agenda for COP30
Three weeks prior to the COP30 climate conference in Belém, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, the 2nd Sustainable Favela Festival focuses on climate solutions—particularly community-based solutions—and the urgent need to put informal settlements and vulnerable neighborhoods at the center of global climate decisions.
During the first semester of 2025, 100 members and allies of the Sustainable Favela Network drafted the “COP30 Letter from the World’s Informal Settlements,” officially titled ‘Open Letter from Informal Urban Settlements, Traditional and Disenfranchised Communities Worldwide to Global Authorities at COP30,’ with its declaration of intent: “Center Informal Settlements, Traditional and Disenfranchised Communities in Global Climate Decisions.”
Informal settlements “are home to those most vulnerable to… environmental risks in much of the world,” while they are also “building solutions, the first to react in solidarity, as in rescues during extreme climate events,” the letter introduces. “Climate solutions and climate justice will only be possible with their active participation, recognition, and leadership.”
The COP30 Letter from the World’s Informal Settlements, so far with 513 signatories—among them 355 individuals and 158 organizations from 19 Brazilian states across all regions of the country, and 23 nations (Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Puerto Rico, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Switzerland and Venezuela)—will be officially launched at a press conference at 11:30am during the 2nd Sustainable Favela Festival.
The six demands expressed in the letter, written to reflect shared concerns of informal settlements and vulnerable communities worldwide, are: (1) Place the most vulnerable settlements in your countries at the heart of climate decisions. (2) Invest at the local level in ways that promote and value the local population, their ancestral and grassroots knowledge, and sense of belonging. (3) Climate funds must prioritize Nature-based Solutions and foster renewable energies in informal settlements. (4) Ensure that consolidated settlements and communities that wish to remain are able to do so safely and with quality services. (5) Guarantee, in settlements where resettlement is desired, safe and adequate housing. (6) Invest in rural, Indigenous, quilombola (in Brazil), fishing, and other traditional communities.
The Sustainable Favela Network will continue to collect signatures until COP30 in Belém, sending the letter—endorsed by hundreds—to global authorities attending the conference, where network members will be present to read the letter at various spaces and events. Click here to lend your voice in support of the COP30 Letter from the World’s Informal Settlements.
Favelas Create Solutions
The Sustainable Favela Network’s activities have always taken place within and across favelas, ‘by us for us’ sharing knowledge and developing actions together, then actively communicated to outsiders. The Sustainable Favela Festival, however, provides an opportunity for the general public to engage in person with the many solutions generated by favelas across Greater Rio, in a large festival focused on the exchange of experiences and knowledge. Since our launch in 2017, Rio de Janeiro’s Sustainable Favela Network has grown monthly, carrying out collective actions within and between participating favelas. The network fosters knowledge sharing, the reclaiming of memory and a sense of belonging, the development of infrastructure and environmental technologies, research, and advocacy. Don’t miss the chance to engage with us at the festival!
Program
- 2nd Sustainable Favela Festival – Favelas at the Center of Climate Solutions
- Check out the full program! (in Portuguese) – Activities for children are marked with a special icon.
- Date: October 18 | Time: 9am-5pm | Place: Fundição Progresso, Rua dos Arcos no. 24, Lapa, RJ
The 2025 program includes 8 spaces…
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- Cultural performances, including: Misturidades Group—intergenerational percussion from Casa de Santa Ana/City of God; plays: ‘Quariterê Queen, from Brazil, from the World’ and ‘And What If We Don’t Quit?’ by CDDH Petrópolis; Funk and Environment by #EstudeoFunk; ballet with choreography inspired by the Story of the Black Dancer from the Community who Performed on Broadway, by Juliana Coelho Dance Company/Cordovil; Raiz de Baobá (CHAO); Ciranda da Rocinha Literary Soirée; EDDI MC presenting hip-hop culture (Baixada Never Surrenders); ‘180 NELES!’ by Oca do Viradouro/Niterói; and Bloco Afro Orumilar (Ofareré Cultural).
- The health and food justice space: a new feature of the 2025 edition of the festival, with favela collectives offering agroecological lunches, discussions on healthy eating and urban agriculture, activities for reconnecting with nature, care for the soil, a bike workshop, corporal dynamics and capoeira, an environmental education game and waste management activities.
- Discussion circles on: the power of memory, fundraising, impacts of climate change, grassroots communication, social mapping, Afro-literary ancestry, basic sanitation, health and race, the right to water, among many others.
- An exhibition space is also a new feature in the festival’s second edition, showcasing the history of favelas and peripheral communities from across the city. Exhibitions include: Favela Climate Memory (10 favelas), Evictions Museum (Vila Autódromo), Fragments of Memory (Cerro Corá Residents in Motion), Women Warriors (Favela Museum/Pavão-Pavãozinho/Cantagalo), The Bay Detectives – Citizen Science in Action (Sepetiba Ecomuseum), Memories of Maré (Maré Museum), Rocinha: A Historical Journey Through Images (Sankofa Museum/Rocinha), and Women of Stone: 25 Years of Collective Sewing (Women of Stone Collective/Pedra de Guaratiba).
- Hands-on workshops for all ages, including: Urban art, PANCs (unconventional edible plants), cordel literature, composting, mapping emotional landscapes, how to build a homemade biodigester, reclaiming stories and grassroots communication, bio-jewelry, the seasons and climate change, crafts, and more!
- Film club and workshop, featuring screenings such as ‘Nature and Dreams,’ ‘Horto’s Roots,’ ‘Trash? Not to Us!,’ and ‘Baixada Never Surrenders.’ Plus a 2.5-hour workshop: ‘Climate Adaptation Indicators: Citizen Science to Connect Global and Local.’
- Healing spaces offer: ancestral, collective, and individual therapies; integrative health practices focused on the environment and reconnecting with nature; dialogues about Brazil’s Unified Health System (SUS), care and support circles, and activities aimed at well-being in times of climate crisis, among others.
- Booths, a fair, and solidarity economy workshops throughout the day at the Market Space, with 50 stalls dedicated to exchanging information and ecofriendly, beautiful products from various grassroots groups.
The festival will be a celebration of the initiatives and lived experiences of organizers seeking to achieve the Sustainable Favela Network’s eleven thematic goals: a welcoming and dynamic space for the exchange of knowledge and strengthening of ties between communities and the city as a whole.
About the Participating Groups
The 2nd Sustainable Favela Festival: Favelas at the Center of Climate Solutions is taking place through the actions of over 140 socio-environmental community-based collectives and allies, representing 100 favelas across Greater Rio.
Check out the list of favelas and communities that will take part in the 2nd Sustainable Favela Festival: 18 (Piedade), 4 Bicas (Complexo da Penha), Acari, Aço, Alemão, Antares, Arará, Areia Branca, Asa Branca, Ascurra, Beira Pica Pau Cordovil, Campos Elíseos, Casa Branca, Cerro Corá, Cidade de Deus, Colônia / Campo do 15, Complexo da Penha, Coroa, Coruja, Fogueteiro, Furquim Mendes, Galinha (Nova Campinas), Gato (Gradim), Gaúcha (Gramacho), Guararapes, Horto, Independência, Itacolomi, Jacarezinho, Jacutinga, Jardim Primavera, Luz, Macacos, Magarça, Mangueira, Maré, Muquiço, Parada São Jorge, Parque da Cidade (Gávea), Parque Paulista, Parque Royal, Pavão-Pavãozinho/Cantagalo, Pedra de Guaratiba, Pedreira (Costa Barros), Porto da Pedra, Praça Seca, Providência, Queimados, Ramos, Rio das Pedras, Rocinha, Salgueiro, Santa Marta, Santíssimo, Sepetiba, Serrinha, Terra Nostra, Terreirão, Terreiro (Itaipuaçu), Tijuquinha, Tuiuti, Vidigal, Vigário Geral, Vila Alzira (Novo São Bento), Vila Autódromo, Vila Cruzeiro, Vila Isabel, Vila Kennedy, Vila São João, Vila Zulmira and Viradouro Santa Rosa.
About the Sustainable Favela Network
The Sustainable Favela Network has been growing since 2017 and is currently made up of 1,000 members, including community organizers from over 300 favelas and technical allies who work together in the fight for climate justice, aiming to realize the potential of favelas as sustainable communities.
Our actions focus on 11 key goals (Climate Justice, Socio-Environmental Education, Participatory Policymaking, Local Culture and Memory, Food Sovereignty, Collective Health, Solidarity Economy, Right to Sanitation, Energy Justice, Just Transport and Sustainable Housing). We strive to foster and enhance the qualities that already exist in favelas to amplify their potential. The SFN operates from the perspective of favelas as solution factories, including for human sustainability, based on the concept of Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), which focuses on developing residents and territories through their existing strengths. The Sustainable Favela Network’s managing organization is Catalytic Communities (CatComm), winner of the Brazilian Federation of Architects and Urban Planners (FNA) award in 2022, among other honors, for its work since 2000 in providing strategic support to favela organizers across Greater Rio.
Event Sponsors
The 2nd Sustainable Favela Festival: Favelas at the Center of Climate Solutions is organized by the Sustainable Favela Network with the support and partnership of re:arc institute, Fundição Progresso and CEDAE, which is providing drinking water for all participants. Individual donors to Catalytic Communities have provided extra support allowing the event to scale beyond initial projections. The 2025 event is also part of three other essential pre-COP agendas taking place in the city of Rio de Janeiro: the Rio de Janeiro Sustainability Turnaround, the 15th Annual Rio Agriculture Week, and UN-Habitat’s Urban October.
Press Contact
- International/English: +55-21-991976444
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/favelasustentavel
- Email: press@catcomm.org
When and Where?
- 2nd Sustainable Favela Festival – Favelas at the Center of Climate Solutions
- Check out the program! (in Portuguese) – Activities for children are marked with a special icon.
- Date: October 18, 2025
- Time: 9am-5pm
- Place: Fundição Progresso, Rua dos Arcos no. 24, Lapa, RJ
Media Materials (free to use)
- Full Program (in Portuguese)
- Program Booklet (in Portuguese)
- Program on Instagram (in Portuguese)
- COP30 Letter from the World’s Informal Settlements and in PDF
- Sign-up Form for COP30 Letter in English
- Video Footage of the 1st Festival (with English subtitles) [free to use, provided it is for coverage of this story and attributed to the Sustainable Favela Network/CatComm]
- Photographs of the the 1st Festival [free to use, provided it is for coverage of this story and attributed to the Sustainable Favela Network/CatComm]
- Learn more about the Sustainable Favela Network
*The Sustainable Favela Network (SFN) and RioOnWatch are initiatives of the NGO Catalytic Communities (CatComm).