Brazil – Rio de Janeiro - BP

In our last visit to Brazil we had identified a potential project with the photographers that BP has trained in the Associacao Nova Brasiia within the Favela Complexo do Alemao. The project is named Foco no Futuro (Focus on the Future).
BP Castrol has trained 85 photographers from the favela ranging in age from their late teens to mid fifties with the main group being in the late teens and early twenties.

The training project has recently finished and the focus of the project organiser (Altayr – a lecturer from a local University - UNISUAM) is now upon turning the Association’s students in to monitors so that they can train other photographers. Also they are looking in to ways that the students can become professionals and support themselves by making a living out of their new found skills.

Dreamaid offers these people a market place in which to sell their prints. We explained how Dreamaid works and also discussed whether or not further support would be required from the Dreamaid Charity (for PC purchases / cameras / internet access). The project coordinator from BP is planning to consider this offer but thanked us for what we are doing already.

Our meeting was held at the Association offices on the edge of the favela and we took the opportunity to get some pictures which will be shown on the site shortly. It was a wonderful experience to see how a little support can go a long way and BP is to be congratulated on this outstanding example of community support.

There is further work to be done on the legal aspects of the Association’s agreements with the artists and between themselves. We will also need to review how cash can be received and distributed appropriately but these are hopefully small steps that can be accomplished within the next couple of months. An interim measure was offered by Altayr which may see these prints on sale very soon…

Thank you to Cris, Samara, Uanderson, Ana Carolina and Altayr for your hospitality! We are looking forward to our first project in Brazil within a favela and bringing your amazing photographs to the wider public attention of the world.

Best regards,

Peter McAteer