rio geography: rochina + coopa-roca

photo from UnprobableView.

Rochina is the largest favela in the river of january (Rio de Janeiro). Rochina means "little farm" in Portuguese. It's also very near the wealthy neighborhood of São Conrado, where some of my friends live. Geographically, Rio is one of the most marvelous and beautiful cities I have ever seen.

photo by me.

I considered getting a favela tour while I was in Rio, but decided against it for ideological reasons: I felt that the tours may be making more a spectacle of the people and their realities, and though I know there are dangers, I think that the tours may also promote the notion that Rio is simply "too dangerous" for outsiders--which I disagree with.

I think the most dangerous thing about Rio is that I didn't want to leave. I love the landscape, the people, the language, the food, and the culture. I understand that I am seeing the city with rose colored and relatively privileged lenses. Still, there is a tremendous amount of beauty in the city's graffiti, the arts, and in the social initiatives.

This post will deal with the social geography, which promotes the arts.

Back to Rochina. Pictured above is Maria Teresa Leal, who founded Coopa-Roca, a sewing cooperative located in Rocinha, in 1981.

"When Leal visited the favela with her housekeeper, who lived there, she saw that many poor women in the favela were skilled seamstresses — yet they had no opportunity to use their skills to generate income. So she got the idea to start a co-operative, which would recycle fabric remnants to produce attractive quilts and pillows. Gradually, as the women gained experience and developed skills in manufacturing and marketing, the work grew more professional." (PBS)


This project combines social justice, environment, and urban geography i a brilliant, tangible, and inspirational way.

Chicago's AGC (with Sarah Elizabeth)

Off the orange line Pulaski stop is a small beacon of hope. The Academy of Global Citizenship contract school has less than 100 students, but in its first year, it is a symbol for hope and change. As the fall season in Chicago is having its last days in the 70’s, change is certainly on the horizon. I visited The Academy on the day after the 2008 Presidential election— the notion of hope was part of the zeitgiest. Optimism pumped through the 100,000+ Americans who gathered in Chicago’s Grant Park last night.

In the faces of the kids I saw this morning at the AGC, I saw promise. With the curriculum of the International Baccalaureate Program, the environment of sustainability, caring and intelligent administrators, and encouraged proactivity, I do not know how to see anything else but budding individuals. I truly hope that these kids someday recognize and appreciate what a wonderful and supportive atmosphere they went to school in.

One particularly sweet story that Sarah Elizabeth Ippel, Founder and Executive Director at the AGC, shared with me today is that one of the students went to the office to sit down for a bit because he had a headache. After a few minutes, the women in the office saw him assuming the “tree pose” (a yoga pose which is calming). See it animated here. This was not only a heart-warming display of what the school hopes to foster (that is, a self-starter attitude), but it speaks also to their cross-pollinating/ cross-disciplinary approach. Finally, this example serves as a microcosm for what the students will be learning to do: creative problem-solving. Needless to say, I am thus far impressed not only with this young student, but with the Academy.

Not long after I walked out of the school, my little bubble of hope was put into perspective. I walked back through the parking lot, around broken glass and up to the El station. Outside the station were two cop cars—one of the officers must have been using a megaphone for the crowd of teenagers; I didn't stick around to see what the commotion was about. I jogged up the stairs to the platform, and it was filled with teens (and this was 11:30am). This scene served as a reminder: although these preschool-aged kids in the AGC school not 500 feet away had a bright future (in my mind’s eye), many issues facing urban education persist.