Regarding safety, all is well as long as the neighbouring gangs are quiet and that the cops remain in their premises. The fear of the inhabitants is to be caught by a stray bullet. In the past, battles between gangs and with the police force made devastating damages, and took the lives of many innocent people. From time to time, we can hear some gun shots, and we are not mistaken, they are real shots and not fireworks.

The abolition of slavery at the end of the 19th century and then the decline of the agricultural activity created massive movements of the rural population towards the big cities, where the essence of the economic activity concentrates. It is of this immigration that were born the favelas.

The favelas are everywhere in the city, but are far from being integrated to the rest of the town. As for ghettos, they dissociate themselves from the 'normal' zones  on almost all the criteria: no laws, no public service, predominance of blacks and mixed people, energy infrastructures underdeveloped, restricted access (gates, no streets inside). As if everything stopped at their doors.

The traffickers, armed to the teeth, control everything. Some of them are often posted at the entry of the favela and often cast their eyes on who gets in and out. One morning, while entering a favela to give an English course, I was challenged by a large caïd who asked me what the fuck I was doing there. He let me pass while grimacing when I said to him that I was a volunteer, but made me understand very clearly that I was in his area. In the favela, the traffickers do not hide, everyone know them. They do not hesitate to walk with their firearms in their belts, while discussing with a granny or while playing with the kids.

In conclusion, quite a dark picture and a dubious future. The local and governmental actions, before bearing their fruits, will be slow and take much time. Maybe one day, the inequalities will narrow and the favelas will dissolve themselves in the city, or better, will disappear. But when? And at what price?

We can read on the tired face of adults and children that their daily life is not easy, and that they are too often confronting problems. We see that the environment in which they live every day is hard, violent, and influences their behavior a lot.

The majority of the children with whom I work are quickly over- excited, wild, hard to control and sometimes have very violent reactions. In total opposition with the children of Mali in Africa, all very calm…

This portrait that I have drawn up to you may appear quite dark, but unfortunately it is real and everything I have described I either saw or heard while discussing with the people.

While working there, I was lucky to  closely see people's daily lives, their conditions, and even if my immersion was temporary and limited, I quickly got aware of the serious problems that the Brazilians have to confront. The inhabitants, to live them directly, and the governemnt and action groups, to try to solve them.

At governmental level, great programs were launched these last years. Millions of $R will be invested in the favelas, but their final intention is prone to many controversies.

The main objective is to restore and instigate the favelas by developing the energy distribution and waste systems, by creating streets, education and health centers, and by renovating the residential blocks. On paper the program seems ambitious. In reality, it appears almost impossible to implement. For some, this program is a mean for the government to penetrate into the favelas, today completely enclosed and under the control of traffickers. By building streets, the favelas will be accessible by motorized way and the police force will be able to make more effective controls and interventions. The traffickers will lose territory and will see themselves weakened. With the still existing problems of corruption, we very much doubt on the good implementation of this political program.

The dwellings are of a very simple architecture, and even amateur eyes can see that they were built quickly and with the available means. The houses are made of bricks or concrete, small and all tangled up with one and others. Separated with steep steps and narrow streets (the favelas for the majority are built on steep hills), we can reach then it only after a long sporty climb.

More important than violence, the sanitary conditions in the favelas are catastrophic. Lacking of space, education and public service, the rubbish trails everywhere and accumulate in this moist environment where the bacteria proliferate at high speed. This problem is added to the one of waste water, which in many favelas is rejected only with a few meters away from their source. And when the rain arrives, it is the catastrophe. Rubbish, waste, excrements are carried away by streaming water and pollute the whole city before being rejected into the sea, to pollute it even more. The lack of health support in the favelas worsen the situation, since the populations do not have access to proximity care and prevention.

Locally, small organisations try to improve the daily lives of the inhabitants. Community centre, nursery, health centre, lots of small structures often intended for the young people, the future generation. These actions, if they do not have a weight vis-a-vis of the basic problems, have the merit to improve a little people's daily lives and show to the young people that beyond the traffickers and the walls of their favela, there is a life, better, and accessible.

These organisations are often financed by private or larger ONG, but a little by the government. For more detail on the local actions, see my article on my volunteering project, in the section “Volunteering”.

As for the suburbs in France, it is difficult to see how the government will succeed someday in removing the violence and precariousness, when during decades these zones were forgotten and transformed into powerful ghettos practically impossible to control.

Which future then for the favelas? Which are the means to implement to turn over the situation?