Tin Roof Of A Jesuit Church

The sun is setting over Nova Holanda, one of Rio de Janeiro’s numerous favelas. The light reflects off the
makeshift tin roof of a Jesuit church lighting up the sprawling, ramshackle streets. In the distance, the hum of traffic goes to and from the airport, the occupants in a different world to the 130,000 people that inhabit this particular favela.

For the abject poverty of this shanty town, it is strangely beautiful but almost an alternate universe. Shortly it will be dark and the complexities of the place properly come to life. Already, six young drug traffickers stand around one of a number of street tables littered with a miniature mountain of bags of cocaine.

After dusk, the AK-47s that rest in the background hang around the necks of these Carioca (residents of Rio), with two rival gangs in charge and at war in this particular corner of this Brazilian metropolis. In the midst of it all, stands Luta Pela Paz, a magical-sounding place meaning Fight for Peace set up by a former London boxer and ex-student of St Paul’s School, whose alumni range from Samuel Pepys to Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.

Link (here) to The Standard