The Crime Bureau. Illustration: Latuff Clique aqui para Português Originally published in Portuguese in 2020, this is part two of a two-part article that describes the expansion of the state-sanctioned power of vigilante police militias in the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region. Still relevant four years later, with new municipal elections to take place, we publish the article to facilitate international understanding of Rio’s security situation. This second part provides a brief history of the militias from the military dictatorship to present day, examining their methods of infiltrating the ..read more

Militias and Power in Rio de Janeiro. Illustration: The Intercept Clique aqui para Português Originally published in Portuguese in 2020, this is part one of a two-part article that discusses the expansion of the state-sanctioned power of vigilante police militias in the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region. Still relevant four years later, with new municipal elections to take place, we publish the article to facilitate international understanding of Rio’s security situation. This first part reflects on the involvement of the militias in the 2020 municipal elections. Paramilitary groups have ..read more

Valdirene Militão in a sustainable toy workshop at the Zilda Arns daycare center in Colônia Juliano Moreira, in Jacarepaguá, in Rio’s West Zone. Photo: Personal archivesClique aqui para Português Valdirene Oliveira Militão, affectionately known as Val in the Roquete Pinto favela in Complexo da Maré, located in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone, where she has lived for 52 years, embodies the possibility of everyday sustainable practices accessible to favela residents. Agroecology and sustainability, which increasingly gain space in public debate, are knowledge passed down in the favela in an affectio ..read more

The Acari Market, next the metro line. Photo: The Marielle Franco Favelas DictionaryClique aqui para Português The traditional Acari Fair, which for five decades brightened Sunday mornings around the Acari/Fazenda Botafogo metro station, was abruptly closed on January 22 by Mayor Eduardo Paes, who shared on his social media accounts that, following a conversation with Governor Cláudio Castro, he would issue a decree to prohibit the Acari Fair from taking place on any day. City Hall’s decision was announced less than two weeks after the devastating floods that swept through the surrounding fave ..read more

Collapsed house in Nilópolis on the banks of the Sarapuí River. Photo: Press Release / Nilópolis City HallClique aqui para Português This article is part of RioOnWatch’s ongoing #VoicesFromSocialMedia series, which compiles perspectives posted on social media by favela residents and activists about events and societal themes that arise. Above-average temperatures, increasingly catastrophic storms. Socio-environmental injustice and its effects disproportionately affect the favelas, laying bare environmental racism, State negligence, and the absence of public policies that address clim ..read more

Housing activist Camila Moradia and family at the 8M Black Women’s March in Rio de Janeiro in 2022. Photo: Press ReleaseClique aqui para Português This article is part of a series created in partnership with the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies at San Diego State University, to produce articles for the Digital Brazil Project on environmental justice in the favelas for RioOnWatch. Narratives perpetuated by traditional and corporate media industries, such as Hollywood, have been constructing a collective memory and narrative that reinforce the idea ..read more

 Clique aqui para Português On this World Water Day, March 22, 2024, this video-report with English subtitles brings testimonials from residents of various communities, showing that access to and the quality of water have been deteriorating among Rio’s favelas since the privatization of CEDAE and under the responsibility of private utility Águas do Rio. These are some of the many complaints that RioOnWatch has received and accompanied in various favelas across Rio de Janeiro over the past two years. This video-report brings images from the latest local data launch from the report “Water and E ..read more

The residents’ General Assembly of the Community Land Trust Brussels (CLTB). Photo: Community Land Trust Brussels (CLTB)Clique aqui para Português This is the latest in a series of articles about Community Land Trust (CLT) experiences around the world. We selected a few cases based on their potential to inspire others. These examples show how varied CLTs are despite always having the same basic structure: a nonprofit organization made up of residents owns the land in an area, while residents own or rent the homes themselves. Our objective is to present lessons learned from international experi ..read more

A ..read more

A ..read more