Rio de Janeiro

The cultural diversity of Rio de Janeiro , with its more than 400 years of history, has been the reason for it to be main choice of visitors who come to Brazil. It is a big city, privileged by its geography which grants its title “Cidade Maravilhosa”(Gorgeous City).
It is located in one of the most beautiful places of the world, where the sea, mountains, forests and lakes blend in amazing traces.
 

When the lights turn on, the city acquires a new life and rescues the dream which is the fuel of this incredible people, who has a lot of guts, who generate with a smile in their faces and with a eternal credo that the most unreal of plans can turn true.
People who in adversity, can create a luxury explosion of beauty and pleasure, which is Carnival.

Besides this, because it had been the capital of the country until 1960, it has cosmopolitan characteristics of a big opening for foreigners. The liveliness of this city cannot be translated into words. You must be see and feel Rio, the sea, the mountains, the rocks, the green, the forest, the fashion malls, its gastronomy of international standard, the smiles, the beautiful people, the plans, the creations, the improvisations, only a “carioca” way to run a very cool life. (carioca is the denomination given to who is born in Rio de Janeiro).
 

On the other hand, the city of Rio de Janeiro, as well as the other big cities of Brazil, is marked by extreme contrasts, reflections of the high social inequality of the country. To the national and international scenery, Rio is associated only by its extraordinary natural beauty, and a popular cultural exuberance, but also the co-existence in the same urban space, between prosperity of rich inhabitants and the need of poor people in the slums.

The chasm between rich and poor and their proximity in geographical areas, is not exclusive of Rio de Janeiro in the Brazilian context.
However, although Rio de Janeiro has the most suitable ways to promote better improvement in the living conditions of its inhabitants, the city has not been efficient in transforming these means in its development. On the other hand, it would be wrong to imagine that there is something intrinsically perverse in the social arrangement of Rio, that does not allow the efficient use of ways to promote human development. You need to know the city better to understand it.
 

A research conducted in 2001 in Rio de Janeiro, utilizing the international pattern - the IDH- Human Development Index- and the Brazilian pattern- ICV - Quality of Life Index - which in a certain way, amplified the information obtained from the former, sought to deepen the knowledge about the dynamic of the city.

The results of this study, shows that one of most prosperous districts of Rio with international fame is an example of extreme contrast between the available resources to promote development and poor performance to obtain positive results. On the other side one of most prosperous island of suburbs shows an almost opposite face. With limited resources, this suburb district achieves in their limits astonishing results in human development, within obvious limits.
 

The difference between these two districts, points to something new and surprising and instigating. The great message is that solutions exist and are near us.

This is our challenge: to identify our opportunities, and provide human and/or financial resources, through Volunteers actions, trying to intensify and to improve the efficiency of the promotion process of development, which should be in evidence with the real improvement of the social conditions of the city’s population.

Photos by Felipe Goifman - www.felipegoifman.com