I was born and raised in the Turano community located in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro, during my adolescence and early youth I was part of the negative statistics registered in my community, the lack of opportunities and lack of positive references in my favela, made me be influenced by the local atmosphere, performing a deep dive into the world of crime and drug use having several passages through the prison system in my city.

The Key Turn

In 2010, after I won my freedom, I had the opportunity to work informally in the archives of the Jornal do Brasil where I could have access to old and updated articles that narrated the reality of extreme vulnerability of my community, soon after this experience, with the pacification process being consolidated in RJ and consequently in my community, It was at this moment that I had a close contact with the social demands of my slum, and I realized the need to have a leader and a project in the center of the community that could create a revolution from the inside out and transform the current reality of Turano.

The Revolution

In 2014 I had the opportunity to meet Guillame, a French surfer who had a close connection with my family and was on vacation in Brazil, he gave me my first surfboard, and from this contact with the sport I could discover the working tool that I would use to transform the reality of my community, during this period I mobilized my surf teacher who was also a slum dweller to give free lessons for children in Turano, In 2017 with the arrival of the economic crisis I was fired from FIRJAN system, and from that moment I decided that I would dedicate myself 100% to this project, I mobilized my friends who were practitioners of extreme sports or who had some experience in managing social projects, and we created the Favela Radical Institute, a project that uses extreme sports as a tool for social transformation.

Current Reality

Today, we can count on a network of partners that help us carry out the project’s activities. We serve more than 150 children and teenagers from 8 to 17 years old in surf, skate, swimming, climbing, programming, robotics, zumba, and social emotional education classes, We changed our modus operandi and created campaigns to raise financial resources and supplies to assist the families of some communities in the neighborhood where we operate, and that are in a situation of vulnerability generated by the pandemic, we have already assisted more than 3,000 families with physical and digital food baskets, cleaning supplies, in our campaigns and actions with partners, impacting the lives of thousands of people within these communities.

We return to our activities respecting the prevention measures and continuing the development and transformation of our patients.

Future

We live in difficult and uncertain times, but we see the future with optimism and because of this we have already created our plans and strategies for the post-crisis period, we have already designed new proposals for activities to continue our transformation process after the pandemic.

Our Partners

The World’s problem is everybody’s problem. Today we have a network of partnerships with private sector companies, non-governmental institutions, and volunteers that drive us to make this revolution happen. We are network, we are local, we are Favela Our mission is to transform Turano into the first Radical Favela in the world, building a bridge of accessibility between the favela and the asphalt, generating a gigantic exchange of cultures.

“I am a survivor, through my life experience I was able to acquire technical skills that I could implement in the transformation of my life and in the day to day management of the Favela Radical Institute, the lack of references and the scarcity of opportunities, allowed in an organic way my entrepreneurial spirit to flourish and we could do a lot with little. Today I am a great enthusiast of the idea of sharing this story and experiences with social leaders, entrepreneurs and companies in order to foster access for all to this purpose of provoking the World.”