Americans Inside Rio’s Biggest Favela - 10 stunning facts

Why don’t Brazilians want people to see what’s inside the favelas? My family and I live in Rio and regularly drive past this favela. Today we finally got the chance to explore the heart of this massive concert jungle. Rio de Janeiro has one of the largest urban slums in Latin America. It’s filled with people, rich culture and lots of plumbing problems. Get ready for a very special journey inside Rio’s biggest favela. You are going to see some things no one has shown you before.

10 Facts About Rocinha, Brazil

1. Rocinha is located in Rio de Janeiro’s South Zone on a large hillside overlooking the city.
2. It is located between the highly wealthy neighborhoods of Gávea and São Conrado and another favela called Vidigal. The rich and poor neighborhoods literally side by side are often cited as a symbol of Brazil's social inequality.

3. Rocinha is Rio de Janeiro’s largest favela. In 1970, the favela had 130,000 inhabitants according to the IBGE. There is no current official population census, but residents say over 350,000 people are living in the tightly packed area.
4. Rocinha means little farm. In the 1920s, it was an urban area that expanded into the hillside. In 1927, the region was subdivided and it grew rapidly without any land regulation or planning.

5. Despite its large population, Rocinha takes up less than a square mile of land. This extreme lack of space forces families to build houses on top of one another generation after generation. This results in housing structures stacked up to 11 stories tall.
6. Most homes are made from brick and cement, a majority have running water and electricity. Sanitation is often a big problem - in Rocinha, sewage flows down a large channel in the middle of houses.
7. Rocinha has over 500 unofficial streets called “bicos"
8. Rocinha is considered one of Brazil’s better favelas due to its close proximity to jobs and services. Easier access to jobs also means that families are better off and can afford basic necessities such as electricity and water.
9. Although this favela has economic opportunities and a wide variety of commerce and services within the community, many of these families live in extreme poverty.
10. The average education level for a resident of Rocinha is 4.1 years, with less than 1 percent of the population receiving a degree above a high school diploma.

Sources:

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

#Favela #RioDeJaneiroTrip #Braziltravel
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[vitorcamposlino]

lindo lindos um dos vídeos mais especiais e emocionantes que eu já vi a rocinha é d+! axé

[marinfam]

I'm returning back to the usa after 6 1/2 yrs here in Brazil . I was so choked up watching this video, knowing how much I will miss Brazil and her people ❤️

[williamr.r.]

This is not just a simple Youtube video, this is a great documentary. Thanks

[claudiocarneiro]

Parabéns pela produção musical e edição desse vídeo. Ficou profissional, além do conteúdo interessante e diferente. Brasileiros e estrangeiros vão gostar. Lacrou!

[MTGoddard]

OMG! Are you kidding me?! How courageous ! I am Brazilian and I never ever been in a Favela. Congratulations ! I can’t believe it! Now, I am seeing Favela with Americans eyes. Incredible!

[rafaelpalmeras]

OMG, few brazilians have this courage to climb favelas.

[waltervaladao]

Toda cidade, todos os municípios brasileiros, possuem uma Biblioteca Municipal. Os Estados da federação possuem bibliotecas e arquivos públicos. Todas as faculdades e universidades públicas e privadas por lei são obrigadas a terem bibliotecas.Temos ainda as bibliotecas nacionais etc., e em algumas comunidades bibliotecas comunitárias. Faça um tour cultural, deixe um pouco de lado incursões simplesmente turísticas. E garanto, você vai surpreender-se...

[marinfam]

I forgot to say how happy seeing that library made me!!!

[CarmenDeArceGarcia]

This was an incredible video! You are giving your children an educational experience that they will never forget! Parabéns!

[csoniah]

A bit of how the favelas started : I don't remember exactly the year but africans and Natives had just gained their freedom, with no roof and no food they headed towards capitals to look for jobs and started living in cortiços, which are small cheap buildings that were still better than the favelas houses we have nowadays. The problem was a lot of families lived in these places with really bad sanitary conditions, this became a problem when epidemic started appearing in those areas. So insteand of the government providing a better place for those people they decided to destroy the cortiços and kick out the people who lived there because they were trying to create a new image to the capitals of Brazil.

So the people from the cortiços had to go live in suburbs, far away from the business district centers where most jobs were. If you think about it, is the opposite of the USA, here in Brazil the rich live near the BDC, getting access to the museums, historical parts of the city, malls, good schools etc and the poor who live in the suburbs far away are excluded and forgotten.

But back to what I was saying about the history of how the favelas started ... The government ignored the fact that if you put most of the working mass far away you create traffic, which is why mobility is a huge problem in Brazil nowadays, they thought people were just going to quietly accept being pushed away ... what happened was that people started to build irregular houses near the centers of the capitals, so they could get to work on time and didn't have to pay extra for transportation. This is how the favelas started.

At first the favelas were composed just by workers, people who would come from other areas of Brazil looking for an opportunity to escape poverty but because of the difficult access and geography mafias and criminals started to hide in these places, making the life of the locals difficult and resulting in many massacres.

So in conclusion if the government had just built better houses none of this would exist. If the government had given support to the people who had just gained their freedom from the beginning the cortiços wouldn't happen. If they didn't make such an unfair law about land property in Brazil everyone would be able to have their own house and land because how would people who had just gained their freedom have money to buy land? Why would a native Brazilian need to buy a land that originally belong to them? This is why we have many movements right now fighting for a change of land distribution in Brazil. We have too many lands not being used in the hands of few. Too many lands being taking away from native communities and being used for agrobusiness that is destroying the forests, the amazon and is not even to feed the people who are starving but to export and make the bank account of the elite and farmers fat. We have a lot of problems as you can tell and it all comes from the colonization process of the country.

[chrismccombs]

Incredible drone footage over the top of Rocinha!

[amaralise]

As bibliotecas ficam nas escolas, Universidades e em lugares específicos como SESC, SESI e as municipais que são bem poucas realmente.

[edu-os-aki]

Wow 😍😍what a fantastic video showing whole family and the reaction of everyone, I loved how the kids were able to experience all that, a totally different and contrasting world. Congratulations 👏🏽

[monicaferreira]

It's a very cool, informative, and necessary video! It is important to demystify the idea that Rio de Janeiro is just Copacabana beach. Everywhere you go, you will find a great diversity of people, situations, and cultures. Congrats!

[wanderleyc.nazario]

Rocinha linda, do Brasil para o mundo por: Our Brazilian Life. Rocinha enaltecida, visitas ilustres, desbravadores (USA).
Família linda, crianças 👨‍👩‍👦🏃👦 maravilhosas. 👏👏👏👏👏👏

[lycapinho]

Btw, as a bookworm myself, I was delighted to see they have a library in Rocinha 🙏❤

[uppityupshaw]

Best Favela tour yet! Thanks for sharing.

[denizeambrosi]

Este vídeo ficou maravilhoso
Parabéns eu adorei 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

[edwardb]

An excellent video providing insight into Rocinha.

[heigringo]

Bacana esse passeio na Rocinha. A lição mais importante a pequena falou, "Sinto que tenho sorte de morar onde moro." Ou seja, a gente aprende a dar valor às nossas cosias.
Uma observação à parte: Suas filhas estão tão grandes! A loirinha está quase da altura da mãe, e a mais nova está mais alta que que nasceu antes dela!!!
Parabéns família! Deus os abençoe!!!