According to IBGE (2011), there are 1,393,314 people in the 763 favelas in Rio, i.e., 22.03% of the 6,323,037 inhabitants of Rio. I can state, with absolute certainty, that this number is much larger, taking into account that the research was conducted four years ago and not all inhabitants were consulted.
Hence, the decree of public calamity, signed a week ago by the Governor, does not scare us. It was signed more than 100 years ago in the favela. The areas related to health, safety, education and mobility, which now suffer with the crisis caused by the bad management of the government, are part of the history of the favela since its creation in 1897. The inhabitant of the favela lives with this calamity every day, the problems of the favela are old news and no government from party A or B has stepped forward to change the situation.
Now, R$ 3 billion were lent to the Government of Rio, a sum of money that will not be used to pay pensioners nor to put an end to the strike at the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro nor will be used for the hospitals. And once again, none of it goes to the favelas. All of this money will be used for the Olympics. An event that hides the true reality of a city that is far from being an Olympic city. A city that has nothing to celebrate. There is no party in a city that does not pay its pensioners, whose youth is not in class because of the teachers' strikes, whose public university has been on strike for more than 100 days, which has poor hospitals.
Once again, the inversion of priorities will harm the poor and will give priority to an event that the poor will have to pay for with the cutbacks while not even being allowed to participate.
The image is taken from: https://reported.ly/2015/06/02/favela-homes-demolished-rio/
