Brazzil

Very well written and presented. The article does a great job of practically and realistically presenting the lives of those that live in the favela. The project sounds genuine and effective. This is the kind of positive gringo-Brazilian interactions that both sides need. Parabéns!

Anyone interested in volunteering in Brazil should check out voluntarios.com.br It is in Portuguese but it's the most authoritative site on volunteering in Brazil. Nice article all round. Volunteering with an NGO is the best way to help. Giving your own time and skills is often much better than giving money. In my experience though don't go in thinking about how you can change the world in a few months. The best result that you can realistically hope for is that your abilities begin to rub off on those around you and you enable them to help themselves rather than become dependant on NGO handouts.

...I am 55 years old,relatively wealthy,and I have a daily dream....of living in.....Maceio !!
Could you tell me the year and months you were there....because he reais is moving rapidly these days. so I can have an approximate idea of the cost of living, based on the one you described.
One Forum member said that giving time is better than money ! I agree with him...but without money...hard to buy or build...without tools and materials...!!!! So would it not be better to finance...an NGO.
As to the second forum member my answer is that yes...people should not become dependant on NGO handouts...but as explianed in the article...some money is needed to make copies of teaching courses, build toilets..., buy computers....etc etc with and under the supervision of...NGOS members as treasurers AND teachers...to be sure money is well spent ?????

it is such a shame that a country like brazil has to deal with the fact that we have so much, yet, nothing.
the country is one of the richest countries in the world. nowhere else can we find such diversity of biodiversity and natural resources.
we mines that will never exploited to their maximum and we have money to pay for politicians that pay their way to power so that they can rob the money that is taken from our pockets by the highest interest rates in the world and the highest figures in taxes ever.
i just hope that somebody changes this. but i am not really sure that will ever happen.

i am doing a project on brazil and you covered some cool things i hadn't thought of putting in my paper!
very helpful!!!

Thanks brazzil.com! Now I can finally get to my homework.

As far as I read from the article, it is really a social action , because it tries to insert the target people in the market place.
As I could see there are a lot of positive results in this way,independent of organising a NGO or not to help this project,the people who are involved have to manage their own interest and organize its action.
One of the reason which stops the management of the actions in determined places in Brazil,mainly the northeast, It is the social cultural context.

I'm a Brazilian student in Maceio and I can tell you that the problem of the poverty of the poor is that he or she insists in having so many children...how can obe be so irresponsible to go on having child after child and being poor???? nonsense and stupidity