The cliff-side favela of Santa Marta is far from the Olympics, and not just on a map. The slum might as well be in a different world. It’s part of the “other” Rio.
Schools and hospitals are either nonexistent or unusable. Sewage runs next to crumbling homes. Garbage along the narrow streets attracts chickens, even monkeys. On one wall graffiti art spells it out – clean up Santa Marta.
Talk of Rio 2016 incites anger here.
Residents are frustrated the government is spending at least 12 billion dollars to host the Olympics while they still face dire conditions.
When Rio won its Olympic bid in 2009, Brazil’s economy was on an upswing. But seven years later, it’s a completely different story. Falling commodity prices plunged the country into a deep recession and nowhere is that felt more painfully than in favelas.
“I’m not going to the Olympics,” one resident told Global News. “It’s too expensive.”
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The situation in Santa Marta isn’t unique either. Rio is home to upwards of a thousand favelas, more than any other city in Brazil.
Nearly 1.5 million people live in the shanty towns, about one-fifth of Rio’s population.
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But while many favelas are overrun with drugs and crime, Santa Marta is working hard to keep them out of their community. Hope isn’t lost, and it is a community in every sense of the word.
Ropespierre Avila started a culture centre in the favela fourteen years ago. He and a team of volunteers teach kids how to play instruments.
Avila wanted to give kids something to play with other than guns. Because before the centre, that’s really what they were playing with – actual guns.
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It’s difficult to find any funding for the centre though, so it’s no surprise the Olympics are a sore spot for Avila.
“I’m frustrated,” he said. “We don’t have clean water, our transportation is a mess.”
Avila isn’t alone in his frustration. The government has stopped paying some teachers, firefighters and other civil servants in the city.
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Even promised Olympic spin-off – infrastructure and housing – won’t materialize.
The athletes’ village is one example. It’ll be turned into luxury accommodations after the Games.
“The Olympics aren’t for us,” Avila said. “They aren’t for the favelas.”
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