Rocinha is the largest favela in Brazil. According to an official census around 70,000
people live in the shantytown, but unofficial estimates are as high as 2- or 300,000.
Rocinha, like many other favelas, has been known to be a hiding place for drug traffickers
and other criminals. But Rocinha has much more to offer than gangs and police raids. In
eight years’ time - from 2003 until 2011 - 40 million of the 200 million citizens in
Brazil joined the middle class, and many of them live in favelas like Rocinha. In a way
the development of Rocinha is exemplary of the change that Brazil has gone through in the
last decades. When Rocinha was founded it consisted of simple shacks built on a steep hill
prone to mudslides. Now the area consists of brick and concrete houses that are sometimes
three or four stories high, most of them with basic sanitation, plumbing and electricity.
Every day thousands of locals go to work around Rio where they work as waiters,
receptionists and cleaners. 75 percent of the inhabitants of Rocinha who have a job work
outside the favela, but today there is also more business and activity than ever before in
the 85 year old slum.
Today there is even a main street winding its way up through the neighbourhood. Motorbikes
used as taxis with drivers dressed in green vests go up and down the steep street. They
honk their horns and take customers on the back for a few coins.
