{"id":31887,"date":"2016-08-19T13:10:16","date_gmt":"2016-08-19T16:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=31887"},"modified":"2016-08-23T11:20:47","modified_gmt":"2016-08-23T14:20:47","slug":"olympic-tourists-share-perceptions-of-rios-favelas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=31887","title":{"rendered":"Olympic Tourists Share Perceptions of Rio’s Favelas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Despite months of doomsday publicity in international media outlets about\u00a0the Rio Olympics<\/a>, tourists from around the world have flocked to Rio in the last few weeks for the 2016 Summer Games.<\/h4>\n

RioOnWatch<\/em> visited\u00a0Copacabana beach<\/a>, near the site of the Olympic beach volleyball arena, to talk\u00a0to Olympics fans and tourists from a variety of countries about their perceptions of Rio\u2019s favelas. Visitors gave\u00a0a range of views on these communities, showing the influences of international media<\/a>\u00a0and received\u00a0perspectives\u00a0of favelas from abroad.<\/h4>\n

\"Ben<\/a>\u201cI think favelas are up on the hills, people there don\u2019t have much money. I know it\u2019s a big problem here in Rio. People think they\u2019re violent, they say \u2018don\u2019t go to a favela.\u2019\u201d\u00a0Ben, 20, and Paul, 21<\/strong>,\u00a0Germany<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI know that favelas are a part of Rio, and they\u2019re usually poor. I don\u2019t think I would go there.\u00a0To me, the most important thing is how to spend a lot of money here in Rio. The question is, should you spend so much money on the Olympics instead of helping people in favelas? I hope the Olympics are bringing something good for the people here, too. I don\u2019t know if they are, but I hope so.\u201d\u00a0Oberle, 62<\/strong>,\u00a0Holland,\u00a0<\/strong>
\nfather of Olympic athlete<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/a>\u201cWhat we\u2019ve heard is mixed. I work with three Brazilians, and for them it\u2019s\u00a0a\u00a0totally different perception,\u00a0favelas are the most culturally vibrant<\/a> part of the city.\u00a0Back in England, there\u2019s this idea that everything in Brazil is terrible, but I think we have a different idea because I have insider information. If you were to believe the news in England, it\u2019s like \u2018don\u2019t go there, you\u2019ll get robbed and die\u2019 but that\u2019s not at all what it\u2019s really like here.\u00a0I think the favelas are like the slums in Mumbai\u2013we\u2019ve been to Mumbai, and that had quite a negative portrayal in the media, but the slums there have some of the happiest people in the world.\u201d\u00a0Matt, 28, and Laura, 25<\/strong>,\u00a0UK<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve seen a favela, maybe near Lapa? I think they\u2019re for poor people, they\u2019re dangerous. I haven\u2019t been to one, and I don\u2019t think I would go.\u201d\u00a0Werner, 47<\/strong>,\u00a0Austria<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Juan<\/a>\u201cFavelas are equivalent to like what we would call a ghetto<\/a> in the United States. They\u2019re not safe, they\u2019re poor communities. I wanted to do a tour<\/a>, because it\u2019s obviously not what everyone says it is. I do want to visit a favela, I think it would be really interesting.\u201d\u00a0Juan, 28 and Sam, 28<\/strong>,\u00a0USA<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cA favela is kind of like a slum<\/a>, a poor neighborhood. I\u2019ve seen mixed reviews: some people say it\u2019s totally dangerous, you don\u2019t want to go there, stay away. But I\u2019ve also read blogs by other travelers who have had a different experience. They say they\u2019re really interesting communities, some of them have even stayed there, so that\u2019s like a different perspective.\u201d\u00a0Jessica, 23<\/strong>,\u00a0Canada<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen some favelas, I think, when we\u2019ve gone through on the metro. You see them going up to the stadium, and walking through the tunnels here. I think during the day it\u2019s okay but you wouldn\u2019t want to go through there at night. I\u2019ve heard in some of them there\u2019s no police presence.\u00a0I think there\u2019s going to be a positive impact for people from the Olympics, but maybe people don\u2019t see that right now. But people are coming here, spending lots of money, there\u2019s so much money coming into the city. We wouldn\u2019t have come down here if it weren\u2019t for the Games, and other people like us, now they could come back in the future. I think it\u2019s going to be a good thing for the city, but people can\u2019t see it.\u201d\u00a0Steve, 51<\/strong>,\u00a0Canada<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Adrian<\/a>\u201cWe don\u2019t see\u00a0a lot about it on TV, even though there\u2019s a lot of news coming from Brazil right now. We have the same types of communities in cities in Colombia<\/a>, people living at the edge of the city, on the periphery. But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s just like that, the bad image. I think favelas are places that have poor, humble people, without resources, but good people, like everywhere else. They have them in Belo Horizonte, too, in S\u00e3o Paulo, in other cities. It\u2019s not a problem of us or them, it\u2019s just the division between different parts of the city.\u201d\u00a0Adrian and Luis,<\/strong>\u00a0Colombia<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Natalie<\/a>\u201cA favela is poor, kind of like a ghetto, everyone lives clustered together. We have some friends from Brazil, and they told us, \u2018don\u2019t go there, you might get robbed, stay away,\u2019 so we\u2019re staying away. We\u2019ve seen them from a distance.\u00a0Let me tell you something about the news in the US: right now, everything is negative about Brazil. Supposedly everything here is terrible, there\u2019s Zika, you\u2019re going to get robbed, the water is going to make you sick, all that stuff. That\u2019s not what it feels like here, and we know not all the negative things they show on TV are true.\u201d\u00a0Natalie, 31, and Manny, 33<\/strong>,\u00a0USA<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a place that\u2019s different from other parts of the city, it has a different architecture<\/a>. I think we understand because we also have favelas in Argentina; they\u2019re not called favelas, we call them villas<\/a>, and they\u2019re not on hills, they\u2019re just in other, certain parts of the city. But it\u2019s nothing different, I don\u2019t think they\u2019re so different from the rest of the city.\u00a0Here, I\u2019ve heard there are famous people, Hollywood actors, who have houses in favelas. They say they\u2019re dangerous but honestly, I think it would be interesting to visit. There\u2019s lots of news about crime. I know some of them have been pacified<\/a>, too\u2013they have police and security based there that is involved with the community, people watch out for one another to make sure nobody gets robbed. I don\u2019t know exactly how it works but I\u2019ve heard that they\u2019ve been pacified, so I think that means they\u2019re safe. Do you know which favela would be the safest to visit?”\u00a0Jimena and Michal<\/strong>,\u00a0Argentina,\u00a0<\/strong>Olympic volunteers in Rio<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas Despite months of doomsday publicity in international media outlets about\u00a0the Rio Olympics, tourists from around the world have flocked to Rio in the last few weeks for the 2016 Summer Games. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":31897,"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":[1736,1463,1329],"tags":[1361,136,221,1845,1366,534,5,156,453,194],"writer":[2141,2104],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-31887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-1736","8":"category-perceptions","9":"category-by-international-observers","10":"tag-endfavelastigma","11":"tag-copacabana","12":"tag-favela-culture","13":"tag-media","14":"tag-analyzing-media-portrayal-of-favelas","15":"tag-misperceptions","16":"tag-olympics","17":"tag-south-zone","18":"tag-stigma","19":"tag-tourism","20":"writer-alex-besser","21":"writer-natalie-southwick"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31887","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\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31887"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=31887"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=31887"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=31887"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=31887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}