“The first favela came from the head of a pig. In 1898, the Rio de Janeiro city government  decided to demolish a tenement called Cabeça do Porco (Pig’s Head) that housed over one  thousand people in the center of city. One quarter of the city’s population at that time lived in tenements- and the Pig’s Head tenement represented the unclean and unwanted. The dislocated residents, mostly dock workers, occupied a nearby hill and built new homes from the rubble of the old. The first favela - Morro da Providência - like those that would follow, was the result of a serious shortage of affordable housing for low-income workers—and the government’s unwillingness or incapacity to provide that housing.

Since Morro da Providência, hundreds of favelas have formed across the hills of Rio de Janeiro. The United Nations Center for Human Settlements (Habitat) estimates that between 30 and 40 percent of Rio de Janeiro’s population of thirteen million lives in favelas - illegal land occupations. In the 1950’s, the number of favelas increased dramatically, when poor families from the North and Northeast migrated to Rio de Janeiro in search of better opportunities and access to education, health care services, etc.

These migrants arrived to find poor living conditions in most favelas - no running water, sewage, electricity, or telephones. Gradually, through various community organizations led by activists, the favelas improved. While long established favelas in the Zona Sul and Zona Norte have relatively good access to basic urban services, an explosion of new favelas in the Zona Oeste (where the population living in favelas is growing at the rate of 400% per year) have raw sewage in the streets and no running water or electricity.

Currently about 12% of households in Rio de Janeiro do not have running water, over 30% do not have sewage connections, and official electricity connections reach only 70% of the population. In favelas - which make up the bulk of the households without these urban services - residents use illegal connections (gatos) to water and electricity, and sewage is often dumped straight into rivers, drainage ditchs, and lagoons.

Favela Faces is a bilingual web site that uses photographs and short video interviews to tell the stories behind the faces of four people (Tio Souza, Tiana, Zé Cabo, and Paulinho) living in or around the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Their stories relate the problems facing favela residents, the ways in which they are working to overcome them, and how they have and continue to improve their communities with the limited resources available to them.

Text and stories as well as photograph of Tio Souza courtesy Favela Faces website and with the permission of Rob Worthington of AIDS Portal, who was associated with Favela Faces. AIDS Portal is a partner and Cooperating Organization with dgCommunity HIV/AIDS.