Tercera e Cuarta Feira - Viva Rio y Otros Organizaciones

Tuesday was an extremely long, but very interesting day (after which I was exhausted, hence the lack of a post). We began our day at Viva Rio( http://www.vivario.org.br/), a human rights organization that focuses on gun, youth, and police and increasingly drug related violence. The first project which we were introduced to there was Viva Favela (http://www.vivafavela.com.br/) a website which aims to create a more balanced image of what it means to really live and be from the favelas of Rio. Viva Favela's goal is to act as (among other things) a counter balance to the negative representations of the favelas found in mass media. With its ever growing image library and small (but highly connected and dedicated) team of journalist Viva Favela creates the kind of news and stories that is nearly impossible to find in mass media that aims to sensationalize the life of the favelas. Viva Favela touches on cultural notes, and stories that touch on community issues beyond violence. The reality of the favela is that 80% of the people who live there do not participate in the illegal drug trade or any other kind of illegal activities, unfortunately this is not the image that the press generally presents. However, many mass media, or main stream media, sources have been accessing Viva Favela (an avergage of ten per month) to find stories that go beyond the violence and illicit trade.

After lunch at another wonderful kilo place in the Gloria neighborhood the group wandered around the beautiful park pictured above near the museum of folk art before returning to Viva Rio to catch cabs to Laranjeras. At CDI's (Comite para Democratizacao de Informacao) international headquarters we met with founder Rodrigo Baggio who discussed the creation and conception of CDI. his joint passions for technology and social work led to the founding of CDI in his mid 20s after incredible success in software creation (BIT). He began by simply collecting donated computers to expand the accessibility of the Internet into low-income communities. The program has now become a great success, recognized last year by ASHOCA, (founded by Bill Clinton) among many other prestigious awards. He now has 753 CDI schools in 24 Brazilian states and 10 countries worldwide where people of all ages can go to learn about how technology can be used to promote citizenship and enforce their rights.

Hillary and I will be working with CDI to begin a program of media creation using the flip cams (mentioned in previous posts). I will write more about this when the program begins.

After this we hitched another cab to Promundo (on Rua Mexico) to discuss their projects on domestic and gender violence. It was a long, but incredibly interesting day, after which I arrived at the room, watched some Brazilian soap operas and had a chicken salad.

Today we were back at Viva Rio for the whole day. Where we learned about Comunidade Segura (http://www.comunidadsegura) a website available in Portuguese, Spanish, English and French which enable the connection between the general public and researchers on human rights issues and initiatives in Brazil (and now in the global community) including disarmament.

After lunch we were privileged to meet with Rubem Cesar Fernandes, the founder of Viva Rio. We had a great question and answer session in which we discussed topics from community policing initiatives to the effectiveness of the current drug policy in Latin America. (The conversation was excellent, but these little green and blue parrots did a lot of interrupting - it was dinner time.)





A few of the New School students and I explored the Viva Rio building in a short break between this meeting and the screening of ABC Africa, a powerful film on the Uganda Women's Effort to Save Orphans.

Afterwards the whole group headed to Cineopolis to sit out in front of the beautiful Municipal Theatre and enjoy a light dinner and some much needed refreshments.

Hasta pronto!!!