Come and tour a friendly Brazilian slum
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Rio de Janeiro’s hillside slums, and the drug gangs that infest them, turn off tourists who value their possessions and their lives.
Once the drug gangs are gone, however, it’s a different story. In an encouraging sign, Rio officials are inviting tourists to come and meet slum residents. Rio de Janeiro is set to host the 2014 football World Cup final and the 2016 Olympic Games, so Brazil is keen to clean the city of crime before Rio hosts the big sports tournaments.
The Santa Marta shantytown has became the first community in a new civic program that aims to promote tourism in poor neighbourhoods – otherwise known as slums. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited Santa Marta to officially launch the scheme.
Called “Rio Top Tour: Rio de Janeiro in a Different Perspective” the program offers communities incentives to rid themselves of the violent drug gangs and earn a living through tourism. The scheme aims to train residents as tourist guides. Street signs in English will help and the slums’ music and artwork will be promoted.
Santa Marta, with a population f about 5000 people, is a small slum by Rio standards. Its attractions include the location where Michael Jackson filmed a video. If the scheme works there, authorities will expand it to other slums in Rio and across Brazil.
Other Rio slums include the likes of Rocinha, a massive and notorious shantytown with over 100,000 residents. Rocinha featured in the news last month when police spotted about 10 cars and vans heading there after a wild all-night party in neighbouring Vidigal slum.
The vehicles contained 50 members of a heavily armed drug gang and the confrontation led to a shootout between police and the gangsters, who went on the storm the luxury Intercontinental Hotel. Gunmen waving pistols and assault rifles, backed by others armed with handgrenades and possibly submachine-guns finally surrendered to police after a pitched battle. The shootout continued for 40 minutes, sending bullets flying up and down the street in the upmarket beachside neighbourhood of Sao Conrado, killing a woman and wounding several bystanders.
It’s not the sort of publicity Rio wants in the run-up to the games. Michael Jackson’s video venue is a gentler option.
Written by : Peter Needham
