Onward to Rio Derio Janeiro

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After a wonderful month in Nicaragua, I have moved down to Brazil. I am here to meet with a non profit Instituto Dom, that works with women in the slums, or Favelas as they are called here of Rio de Janeiro. They have been providing business coaching, business skills, and financial literacy for several years. They have a desire to provide microloans, but have not been able to find an opportunity that was non predatory. I’m here to meet with them to see if I can be a solution to that problem.

Favelas stated in Rio in the late 1800s after the Canudos War. The soldiers came to Rio and settled into makeshift accommodations to wait for a payment from the government for their service. The money was never received and they never left. In the 1960s the government implemented a favela eradication policy, leading to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people to public housing projects in an attempt to regulate housing. It was later deemed a failure and they simply turned into new favelas. Today there are more than 500 favelas in Rio accounting for 25% of the city's population. Some communities are controlled by the government, but many others are controlled by mailtia or cartels. One might think the favelas controlled by the government are safer, but that is not necessarily true.

I arrived early Tuesday and we hit the ground running with a presentation by a psychologist to a group of their women and then we visited several women at their place of business in the favelas. They are currently working with 30 women in 4 different favelas who have received seed funds ($200 USD) and one on one mentoring to improve or start their business. These women are ending this formal program, but still have room to grow their business with micro loans. As with all of the countries I work in, we want to use this opportunity as a stepping stone for the women to enter the normal banking structure so our attention can go to lifting up the next woman.

Over the weekend I escaped the heat which was so hot Taylor Swift had to delay her concert. I traveled to a town called Petropolis that is up in the mountains and in my opinion perfect weather: high 60s, no wind, and partly cloudy. On the bus I met two Brazilian ladies who became my tour guides for the weekend. I already thought the town looked like it could be in Switzerland, but then the ladies suggested fondu for dinner. The next day we explored all the history of the city which includes beautiful architecture due to the emperor's family living here. I also had the opportunity to hike up to an amazing vista.

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