Rocinha - one of the largest favelas in Rio de Janeiro
Our school is located in a hilly part of in Rio de Janeiro called Gavea. We are right in the rainforest and have a beautiful view of the lake and the ocean. On a clear day, we can see clear across the bay to the neighboring city called Niteroi.
Rocinha, one of the largest "favelas" in the city of Rio (that is how Brazilians call slums), began on the opposite side of this hill in a place called Sao Conrado. Over the 40 some years in which the school has been here, the favela has grown and now practically surrounds our school.
In the posts below our students have described different aspects of the favela in an attempt to help you all in the US understand the community we plan to work with.
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Even though you always hear about murder and drug dealing in the favelas, but there are some unspoken rules about that. “In the favela there are rules,” said Dembore, a Rocinha resident and tour guide with Favela Adventures. “Don’t steal. Don’t abuse children or rape. Don’t kill.” This is all about honour, and respect, though some don't follow them, so revenge and vengeance takes place, ending up in murder and tragedy. The people who live in the favelas live there because they can't buy a house anywhere else from the income per year/month they get. Some, dont get enough to survive, therefore, they have several jobs at once, for example, being a taxi driver by day, and a night bus driver at night. Some others just start selling drugs and stealing from people. The drug issue was dealt with in 2008 when the police department kicked out the drug dealers. They called this process pacification. Though many people like their life in rocinha, others want to move, as they have eyes for rocinha as a temporary home.
In Rocinha, you can find almost anything in the shops, from battered cars to pens. but the only problem is A) The safety, and B) finding the shop you are looking for. In rocinha there is almost anything but land, and since it is built in the mountains, they can't take too many trees away, as the trees roots fortify the mountain and prevent such things as landslides. Shacks and poorly built hovels can sometimes cause mudslides when it is raining. The old house collapses under the constant pressure of the rain, and its components fall, taking with them pieces of other homes the smash into on their way down from the mountain. “In most favelas the outside of the house and the way it looks is not so important as what is in the inside. Many houses look bad from the outside but once inside you would be surprised to see nice tiled floors and modern furniture with television set and DVD players. Recently I have seen many people installing satellite dishes. I do not have a tv so, this is not available for me. We have a cable tv company here called tvROC (tv Rocinha)”. This was said by a young man living in Rocinha.
“you will hear all styles of music here. The most common music styles I hear everyday are Funk, Hip Hop and Pagode. Walking through the becos you hear more of a variety than on the street. Most popular is Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber and Beyonce for pop music from the US. I have even heard some heavy metal. And I have seen a few “Goths” walking the streets of the favela. They are no different from what you would see in the US, pale faces, long black hair and all black clothing.”. This pretty much sums up life in rocinha, and their community culture.
Many or most of the buildings in Rocinha are built by the people who live there. When it rains in Rocinha some of the poorhouses get washed down the hill but on the main road only the trash gets washed away. For people who live on the main road do not have to walk up a huge mountain to get home, like many people think. Some people, unlike what you’d expect, like to live in Rocinha, but say that there is not much “fun” stuff to do there. There are none or not many dangerous animals in Rocinha. Streets are not completely clean, farther up into the mountain. On the main road it is usually mostly clean. Rocinha is on a mountain and can have landslides.
This post was edited on: 2013-11-25 at 07:52 AM by: Alexandra
Patterns of Settlement, commerce and industry
• Rocinha was built on a steep hillside between Gavea and Sao Conrado. From a shanty town, it developed into an urbanized slum. The last Census counted 69 thousand people living there. It is the most populous favela in Brazil.
• Most houses in Rocinha are made of brick and concrete. There are also some buildings of three or four stories. Almost all the houses have basic sanitation, plumbing and electricity.
• Rocinha has banks, drugstores, hairdressers, restaurants like Macdonalds, bars, lottery houses, lan houses, and many other types of services.
• Rocinha has one main street which crosses from Sao Conrado to Gavea (near EARJ). It has bus liners and moto taxis.
sofia
Infrastructure in Rochinha.
Rocinha is the largest favela in Latin America. Since it is such a huge place, there are lots of people living in there. Each of them have different kinds of jobs and life styles. Depends on how much they earn by their job, they have different kind of houses. People who are really poor don't have running water, light, TV, internet.. lots of those stuff in their house. However, some people who are living there have most of stuff that we have at our house like running water, light, TV, internet..
In Rochinha, there is Rochinha wi-fi which people living in Rochinha can use, but it is really bad one. Also some of them do not even need wi-fi becuase they do not have any devices to use.
Rocinha of Rio de Janeiro is considered to be one of the most densely populated and urbanized slums.
Problems are solved most of the time in Rocinha because Rio de Janeiro has police officers stationed in Rocinha.Out of 126 official administrative regions within the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Rocinha ranked 120th or, 6th worst on the city’s Human Development Index in 2000. The official government census estimated that there are a minimum of 6,000 residents of Rocinha who suffer from at least one health related disability.
Rocinha was chosen to receive the pilot project Project Rocinha (Projeto Rocinha), the community’s first real slum upgrading program.The growing pressure on Colombian drug trafficking, in large part funded by the US, caused trafficker to search for new routes and markets, and more cocaine began being transported south of Colombia through Peru and Bolivia and into Brazil where most was eventually trafficked to Europe or the US. A large amount also remained in Rio and other cities, like São Paulo and Vitoria. The neglected favelas proved the perfect locations for Rio’s new flourishing drug trade. uh oh
Rocinha has status neighborhood since 1993. Rocinha is now one of the largest favelas in Latin America and has more residents than 92% of Brazilian municipalities, with 69,191 inhabitants. Of this total, ¼ are children and 32% are aged between 15 and 29 years old.
Up to 250,000 people live in Rocinha, most of them in shacks. Around 70% of the people who live in Rocinha are from the impoverished northeast of Brazil. Often a family of six will live in one room with one bed for the adults and the children sleeping on the floor. Life expectancy is low – just 48 years, compared with the national average of 68 years in the U.S. Illnesses such as bronchitis is common, and although medical care is available at no cost, essential medicines are not.
80% of people in Rocinha are employed, and the vast majority have nothing to do with the drugs and violence for which their community is famous. However, drug-traffickers, armed with sophisticated, modern weapons, have moved into many favelas, not infrequently resulting in gun battles with police troops sent in after them.
Today, there are an estimated 800 favelas in Rio, inhabited by about 3 million people. Over the years, many of the favelados (the small houses in Rocinha) have improved their property, so that a lot of them today have electricity and running water. Despite the harsh living conditions, almost all houses have a color television, and most have a stereo and the use of a mobile phone. There is even a thriving property business, with richer favelados moving on to better houses and selling their rougher shacks to newcomers.
http://www.insightguides.com/destinations/south-america/brazil/cultural-features/rios-favelas
In 1938 the chapel and school Nossa Senhora de Boa Viagem was inaugurated. The same chapel would become a parish church in 1985 and the first priest to preside over it was the much loved Father Manoel de Oliveira Manangão.Between 1947 and 1954 the Fundação Leão XIII initiated social work in 34 favelas While the history of Fundação Leão XIII, which was later made into a state institution
you added a lot of information here and your detail is impressive. well done
Chaeeun;
You did a good job describing how diverse the homes and the people that live in this "favela" can be.
From your description however, we cannot tell what percentage of the homes in Rocinha are more middle class-like with running water, electricity TV's internet access , etc... and what percent don't have access to these amenities.
To make your description more specific, you could try to find statistical data to describe the income distribution within this community.
Kind regards;
Ms. Florence
Interesting thoughts about the favela!
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- Sean Harris
I like your description of Rochina... I never knew they actually build their own buildings. That is pretty cool!
It was really interesting how you said that sometimes when it rains some of the poor houses get washed away.
I liked how you gave the statistic that 80% of the people are employed. This shows that they are not impoverished by choice and that most are working hard.
I liked how you gave all the statistics. That really told us a lot about the favela.
Este mensaje fue editado el: 2013-12-08 at 07:28 PM by: bga-sam
I liked the the description of the statistics of the favela. For example, 80% of the people are employed.
bga-fletcher wrote:
I liked how you gave the statistic that 80% of the people are employed. This shows that they are not impoverished by choice and that most are working hard.
You are a good reader! Yes you are absolutely right. 80 or 90% of the people that live in the favelas are hard working people that live on these crammed buildings on the hillside to be close to their jobs.
Well stated!
jsanchez
Nov 25, 2013 at 7:32 AM