Favela Tours

What is a Favela?

A favela is the Brazilian equivalent of a shanty town, which is generally found on the edge of the city. They have electricity, but often not formally.

Favelas are constructed from a variety of materials, ranging from bricks to garbage. Many favelas are very close and very cramped. They are plagued by sewage, crime and hygiene problems. Although many of the most infamous are located in Rio de Janeiro, there are favelas in almost every large Brazilian town. In Rio one in every four Cariocas (as the inhabitants are called) lives in a slum.

A favela is fundamentally different from a slum or tenement, primarily in terms of its origin and location. While slum quarters in other Latin American countries generally form when poorer residents from the countryside come to larger cities in search of work, favelas are unique in that they were created as large populations became displaced.

Slum Visits: Tourism or Voyeurism?

MICHAEL CRONIN’s job as a college admissions officer took him to India two or three times a year, so he had already seen the usual sites — temples, monuments, markets — when one day he happened across a flier advertising “slum tours.”

“It just resonated with me immediately,” said Mr. Cronin, who was staying at a posh Taj Hotel in Mumbai where, he noted, a bottle of Champagne cost the equivalent of two years’ salary for many Indians. “But I didn’t know what to expect.”

Soon, Mr. Cronin, 41, found himself skirting open sewers and ducking to avoid exposed electrical wires as he toured the sprawling Dharavi slum, home to more than a million. He joined a cricket game and saw the small-scale industry, from embroidery to tannery, that quietly thrives in the slum. “Nothing is considered garbage there,” he said. “Everything is used again.”

Mr. Cronin was briefly shaken when a man, “obviously drunk,” rifled through his pockets, but the two-and-a-half-hour tour changed his image of India. “Everybody in the slum wants to work, and everybody wants to make themselves better,” he said.

Slum tourism, or “poorism,” as some call it, is catching on. From the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to the townships of Johannesburg to the garbage dumps of Mexico, tourists are forsaking, at least for a while, beaches and museums for crowded, dirty — and in many ways surprising — slums. When a British man named Chris Way founded Reality Tours and Travel in Mumbai two years ago, he could barely muster enough customers for one tour a day. Now, he’s running two or three a day and recently expanded to rural areas.

Read full story [New York Times]

Favela Tour

Favela Tour is an illuminating experience if you look for an insider point of view of Brazil. The tour introduces you to another Rio, within Rio city: the favela. There are close to 750 favelas in Rio. Mostly placed on former public areas on the hillsides, they are now home to 20% of Rio's population, however they remain a mystery for most people who don't live there. The tour is not only to explain about favelas, but to give you a whole new understanding about different aspects of Brazilian society.
    
You will go to the favelas of Vila Canoas and Rocinha, the largest one in the country. Picturesque from a distance, once closer they reveal their complex architecture, developing commerce and friendly people. Most Samba Schools participating in the Carnival parade come from favelas. The tour changes their reputation of areas related to violence and poverty only. Don't be shy, you are welcome there, and local people support your visit. If you really want to understand Brazil, don't leave Rio without having done the Favela Tour.

Phones: 055(21) 3322-2727

Click here to visit official website