What are Favelas?
The favelas are the sprawling shanty towns around most of the big cities in South America, notably Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in Brazil. Overcrowding and the lack of affordable housing in the cities force poor people to build their own homes from scrap metal and junk. The favelas have little running water or sanitation. Recent self-help schemes have begun to introduce some basic amenities, but progress is slow.
The 750 or so separate favelas surrounding the city house around 20 per cent of Rio’s population. Most inhabitants are poor – many work in the city as cleaners or builders or bellboys for Brazil’s tiny minimum wage and a lot are unemployed. Some of the bigger favelas now have a main road, working shops and occasional rubbish collection. But the majority are simply collections of higgledy-piggledy houses built by the inhabitants, who add another floor every time a family member gets married.
