Sample Itinerary for Brazil: Social and Environmental Justice

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1 Sample Itinerary for Brazil: Social and Environmental Justice Day 1 Arrival in Rio, Check into Hotel. Rest Day 2 Orientation Meeting: Trip Overview, health and safety issues, petty crime, culture and people, history of Global Exchange program in Brazil. Briefing by coordinators of general travel information and logistics, as well as a general overview of the program. AM: City tour and visit to Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Hill) learn about History and geography of Rio and the Guanabara Bay. Enjoy a trip to one of Rio s most famous landmarks. From the top of Pão de Açúcar participants will get a literal overview of the city and an unforgettable vision of the its beautiful and unique geography Lunch PM: Visit to the The Center of Theater of the Oppressed - CTO- Rio is an organization dedicated to the diffusion, development, and research of the Theater of the Oppressed methodology. The group implements social and cultural projects throughout Brazil, aiding in facilitator training and in the formation of Forum Theater groups Eve: Rest Day 3 AM: Old Rio City Tour. Rio de Janeiro has a long and amazing history (it is nearly 500 years old). Among other things, it was the seat of Portuguese crown for 10 years, making it the only New World city to have been the capital of a European empire. It was the capital of Brazil until 1956, when Brasília was constructed. Participants will hear a brief presentation outlining Rio s history, then go on a guided tour of the city s historical center. Special focus will be on the changes, both positive and negative, wrought through the years by city planning Lunch

2 PM: We will visit Santa Teresa and Lapa to ride on the old cable car up to Santa Teresa, a quaint, historical neighborhood known for its artists ateliers and lovely views. After descending, participants will get to know Lapa, one of the most traditional neighborhoods of Rio, famous for its bohemian residents and rich musical heritage. We will meet the members of Tá na Rua, a street theater group, and then visit a samba bar and get a first taste of Brazilian music and dance Eve: Free for beach time or local cultural activities Day 4 AM: Understanding Favela history and culture. Event: Visit to Viva Rio to learn about Social activism, Civil society, Government partnerships, community empowerment, history and contemporary problems of the favelas. Pass the with Viva Rio is one of Brazil s most respected and effective NGOs working with favela-related issues. Unlike many organizations that only carry out studies or write reports, Viva Rio is involved in the day to day life of favela residents, working cooperatively with local community leaders to find solutions. We will spend the morning at their headquarters learning about their many programs and also visiting the editorial offices of vivafavela.com, a unique web portal designed specifically to address the needs of favela residents. Each lunch with communities Dinner Eve: Invited Speaker (requesting a representative of the LP-the Worker s Party to talk about current politics, economy and sustainable development in country Day 5 Visit to the Cantagalo Favela to learn about their policing, marginalized populations, Today we continue our exchange with Viva Rio and learn how they implemented the first of its community policing projects in this favela. Participants will get a chance to meet residents as well as community policers, to get a first-hand glimpse of life in the favela. We will also see other community projects, such as a neighborhood community center and a legal aid clinic. Lunch with community PM: Visit to Torture Never Again-We will visit the headquarters of this NGO that serves both as a guardian of the memory of those tortured, murdered, and disappeared by Brazil s military dictatorship, and as a powerful advocacy group working to

3 improve human rights conditions in contemporary Brazil. Participants will have a chance to meet and talk one-on-one with activists who are trying to improve Brazil s prison systems, juvenile delinquency centers, and police force. We will also examine Torture Never Again s extensive historical archive of photos and documents Dinner Eve: Free Day 6 Visit to the offices of AfroRegea Project This project includes the Afro-Reggae band and a cultural center in the Vigario Geral favela. The project has been very successful, uniting black and white youths, from different social backgrounds, through music and culture. Global Exchange has been visiting them for a number of years Lunch and then Day exchange with youth and visit projects Eve free for Beach time and cultural activities (performance of youth or AfroReggae Friday night) and dinner Day 7 MST, Rural Development and Rural Excursion. We will travel outside Rio by bus and spend the day outside of the city. We will visit MST settlement and spend the day learning about them and their rural development programs. (Movimento dos sem terra, Landless Labor Movement) settlement in Santa Cruz. We will hear presentations by MST members and lawyers who have defended MST leaders and fought for land reform. Participants will learn the history of the MST as a national movement, its struggle against Brazil s traditionally inequitable land distribution, as well as the history of the settlement. Each MST settlement is both an act of political resistance (laborers occupy unused privately held land) and an experiment in community living and often organic farming. We will exchange with settlement members, and spend the afternoon seeing how they live and work, offering participants an excellent chance to interact directly with members of what Noam Chomsky has called the most important social movement in Latin America. Enjoy time to hike and enjoy the natural biodiversity Dinner with community Eve: Bus ride back to Rio

4 Day 8 Fazenada Excursion: an excursion to learn about Brazil s fazendas, or plantations. These arease were home to a huge slave population that at one point made up more than a third of Brazil s total population.participants may visit a coffee and sugar fazenda to get an idea of what life was like and how the economics of slavery played out. Learn about other forms of agriculture and rural development. Return to Rio late in the evening Day 9 Western Rio: Visit to the Zone Oeste, Jacarepegua, Cidade de Deus Following a brief presentation, outlining the history of this once pristine outlying region, later transformed into suburbs and favelas, we will visit two communities. First the favela Cidade de Deus, or City of God as it has become known to American moviegoers. We will talk to local residents and community leaders about the development of their community and the role, or lack of it, played by the state. Then we will visit Jacarepegua, where we will meet with members of the Bento Rubião foundation, which is organizing volunteer efforts to build lowincome housing. We will talk to directors of the program about the difficulties they have faced in implementing their programs, as well as the success stories Lunch in the area Eve: Dinner and invited Speaker to talk about human rights and history. You will hear a brief presentation offering a general outline of the history of Brazil s military government, which ruled from 1964 to From 1968 onward, under the so-called hard line, citizens were regularly officially deprived of their right to vote and to protest. Many activists were jailed, tortured, and disappeared. A discussion period will give participants a chance to ask panel members about their own experiences and their view of the U.S. government s role as a supporter of the military regime. Day 10 Free time (or experience Sunday morning religious services) system PM: Explore the Barra da Tijuca. This is the flip-side of the yesterday s activities: one of the sharpest contrasts to be seen in

5 any city in the world is the transition from Cidade de Deus and the favelas of the northern half of the Zona Oeste and Barra da Tijuca, Rio s version of Miami Beach. Barra is home to Brazil s highest concentration of shopping malls, and represents one of the most thorough efforts anywhere in Latin America to import and imitate the American way of life, (or at least what the Brazilian middle class perceives as the American way of life: at the gateway to Barra there is a half-size scale model of the statue of liberty guarding the entrance to a mall and wearing a Coke t-shirt). Beneath and behind all the skyscrapers and parking lots lies what was once a beautiful strip of land between lagoon and sea. When we can take no more malls, we will visit the Marapendi nature reserve and dine at a fisherman s colony, a throwback to simpler times and a good chance to hear some stories of how things used to be Eve: Dinner and free for cultural events Day 11 Departures *** This is sample itinerary. Activities are subject to change ***