My travels to South America in 2010 took me to Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. All my travels have two major components to it – it must include a major hike/trek which I did by visiting Machu Picchu and hiking the Inca Trail. The second component is to volunteer with a local, grassroots level project that gives something back to the local community. As such, when visiting Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, I made it a point to visit and live among the people of the favelas, or ‘slums’ as they are known worldwide.
I say slums in parenthesis because the favelas were anything but that. I met some of the kindest and nicest people there, and the fear and stigma attached to them is mostly based on ignorance. Having worked with communities of the inner cities of North America, I knew beforehand that stereotypes will be broken when I visit and stay in the favelas. What I didn’t expect was the amount of ignorance among even locals, who practically lived near the favelas among some of the wealthiest neighborhoods of Rio, like Ipanema. One of the highlights of my stay was actually introducing the locals neighbors to each other, and surprisingly it took a ‘foreigner’ to do that.
During my two weeks stay in the favelas, I volunteered with the locals by teaching English and some basic computer skills. But more important was introducing other travellers to the community, who contributed to local school projects and much needed humanitarian assistance.