{"id":21401,"date":"2015-04-23T11:39:59","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T14:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=21401"},"modified":"2015-04-23T12:45:35","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T15:45:35","slug":"citizenship-fight-project-martial-arts-in-chapeu-mangueira-and-babilonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=21401","title":{"rendered":"Citizenship Fight Project: Martial Arts in Chap\u00e9u-Mangueira and Babil\u00f4nia"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the communities of Chap\u00e9u-Mangueira<\/a> and Babil\u00f4nia<\/a> in the South Zone<\/a> of Rio, a group of\u00a0children dream\u00a0to be\u00a0trained martial arts fighters.<\/p>\n

This dream has its origins in the Projeto Luta Cidad\u00e3 (Citizenship Fight Project), which offers free martial arts training to children aged\u00a08\u00a0to 18. Founded in 1998\u00a0by Marcelo \u2018Penca\u2019 da Silva Carvalho, a Chap\u00e9u-Mangueira born-and-raised Muay Thai fighter, the project seeks to\u00a0channel\u00a0children and adolescents’ energy and prepare them for adult life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf these children weren\u2019t here, they would be unprepared for the world…I am teaching them how to defend themselves,\u201d Penca said.<\/p>\n

A black belt in Jiu-jitsu and a professional Muay Thai fighter with the organization Brazilian Top Team, Penca\u00a0has traveled and lived in Europe, including Greece, the Netherlands, and France, but he returned\u00a0to Chap\u00e9u-Mangueira\u00a0because he wanted to do something important for his community.<\/p>\n

Penca believes there is good in people but also believes\u00a0that most of the time the world is a dog-eat-dog environment, so he wants to teach the children in his community to harness the good and be prepared for the worst. With this mentality, he has almost 100 young students from the Chap\u00e9u-Mangueira and Babil\u00f4nia communities\u00a0enrolled in Projeto Luta Cidad\u00e3. He also offers classes to adults.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not an easy task, convincing these children to join, but once they do they see how much of a difference it makes,\u201d he said. \u201cTheir physical, mental and spiritual health improves and it is hard for them to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

With all the recent talk of Olympics, Penca believes Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai are sports that should be included in the Games with some alterations. \u201cThere needs to be a decent federation and an organization is essential for the sport to be official,\u201d he said. But he worries the sport would become elitist if this happened.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cTake Judo, for example; a kimono is expensive, supplements, mat, everything is very expensive and this price only tends to increase with popularity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chap\u00e9u-Mangueira and Babil\u00f4nia are an attractive spot even to international fighters. Portuguese professional boxer At\u00edlio Coelho, also known as Gladiator, was born and raised in an informal settlement near Porto in Portugal. Now, he trains seasonally in Chap\u00e9u-Mangueira and Babil\u00f4nia and says that most fighters come from low-income backgrounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne percent [of professional fighters] gets rich, the other 99% are prepared for a life of hardship,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite the lack of financial reward, both men grew up experiencing the benefits martial arts training can bring. They believe the sport teaches an individual how to be respectful, smart and strong.<\/p>\n

Since he founded the project in 1998, Penca\u00a0has positively influenced over 500\u00a0children\u00a0in his community. Despite limited financial support, he dreams of further expanding\u00a0his program’s reach in the future,\u00a0employing more teachers and moving to a bigger training facility in Chap\u00e9u-Mangueira.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the communities of Chap\u00e9u-Mangueira and Babil\u00f4nia in the South Zone of Rio, a group of\u00a0children dream\u00a0to be\u00a0trained martial arts fighters. This dream has its origins in the Projeto Luta Cidad\u00e3 (Citizenship Fight Project), which […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":21453,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1290,1268,1503,1329],"tags":[525,258,364,1605,197,156,207],"writer":[1547],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-civilsociety","8":"category-favelaculture","9":"category-opportunities-to-support-favelas","10":"category-by-international-observers","11":"tag-chapeu-mangueira","12":"tag-community-solution","13":"tag-community-based-organization-cbo","14":"tag-martial-arts","15":"tag-morro-da-babilonia","16":"tag-south-zone","17":"tag-sports","18":"writer-camila-de-meo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21401"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=21401"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=21401"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=21401"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=21401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}