BR MERCADO BR: February 2012

Monday, 6 February 2012

FAVELA KIDS: LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE

Projecto Morrinho has increasingly garnered attention for its amazing aesthetics and the ingenuity of its child creators. Their initiatives, TV Morrinho, Tourism at Morrinho, Expo Morrinho and Morrinho Social, play important role in realizing the vision of Project Morrinho, contributing to the social, cultural and economic development of the surrounding areas. Currently, the project works with more than 20 teenagers.

TRADING SEX (AND FASHION) & FIGHTING FOR CIVIL RIGHTS

ALL THAT IS BEEN USED WILL BECOME TRASH

ASMARE has about 380 members and benefits more than 1500 people. In addition to the daily work done by the scavengers, the association develops partnerships with companies, schools, condominiums, public agencies, among others, to collect their recyclable waste, generating and sustaining jobs for collectors and ex-homeless people. Their industrial production works out in combination with the recovering of the self-esteem and citizenship of that population historically excluded.

ASMARE

Asmare is the association of scavengers of paper, paperboard and reusable material from the city of Belo Horizonte.

Each month Asmare collects about 450 tons of rubbish containing paper, cardboard, magazines, newspapers, aluminum cans, PET bottles and plastic. With the exception of glass and rubber, it receives almost all other types of material and then everything is sorted, pressed and stored, before heading to recycling.

Part of this material is used in the “Cultural Recycle” that promotes workshops of art, crafts, recycling and reusing, generating income for a considerable group of people, all former residents of the streets. The results of the cultural part of the project is a gallery located in one of the high classes areas of the city, exhibiting the most amazing objects made out of rubbish.

DASPU

Fashion brand created by a group of prostitutes from Rio de Janeiro organized under the NGO “Davida”, the Daspu has the objective to generate more visibility to their activism for respect and social inclusion.

The brand came out in 2005 presenting prints, sentences and design inspired in the prostitutes’ world, inspired “from lust, pride and comfort, blended with the beauty and good humor”. The launch has caused a strong impact, in part for their provocative name that means something as “owned by prostitutes”, suggesting the name of the most iconic store of the riches in Brazil, the Daslu.

DASPU has managed to broaden the society's attention to the rights of prostitutes, achieving frequent media reports, the presence of a large public in events with celebrities and supporters marching side by side with the prostitutes. Daspu has shown their products and their unabashed statements in contemporary art enterprises such as the São Paulo Biennale as well as the Istambul and San Francisco art biennales.

PROJETO MORRINHO

PROJETO MORRINHO –

Morrinho is a socio-cultural project out of the favela of Pereira da Silva, in the wealthy Southern Zone of Rio de Janeiro. The project aims to bring positive change to their local community, as well as to challenge the popular perception of Brazil’s favelas.

Morrinho’s headquarters is a 350m2 small-scale model of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas constructed from bricks and several recycled materials. The model began as a simple childhood game in 1997, by local youth searching to escape from the realities of violence and corruption that plagued their lives and their community. Within this miniature of Morrinho (which means either “little hill” or “little favela” in Portuguese), they recreates life in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, acting out a role-playing game with the numerous Lego-block avatars that inhabit the model.