Fighting for peace—boxing and building better lives in gangland Brazil

Maré favela, Rio de Janeiro October 2011

You are crossing an invisible line, it is another drug gang’s territory from this point forward; the bullet holes you see are from the battles to enforce that, there are people in this community who haven’t crossed these lines for years, are stuck in the same neighbourhood that they cannot leave. Do not take any photographs and do not walk around alone.

It is with this that the Maré favela is introduced, a slum of 150,000 people in southern Rio de Janeiro, the place that will be home for the next week to myself and my child soldiers NGO from Congo as well as other groups who are using boxing and martial arts clubs to reach troubled youth everywhere from the slums of Nairobi Kenya to Scranton Pennsylvania.

Our host is Fight for Peace—Luta Pela Paz—an organisation founded by a visionary British boxer and social researcher which has been based in the favela for 10 years, as a combined boxing club, degree granting high school, drop-in centre and youth counseling service. It has graduated hundreds of students every year, found them full time employment and delivered countless numbers from short, brutish, lives as foot soldiers in the drug trade. In the coming days we will hear directly from the young students about their experiences in this community and what they are now doing with their lives in coming back to school and completing their school certificates, learning to box, how to live lives of possibility.

This favela has one of the highest rates of violent death of any country or jurisdiction not at war, much of it from stray gunfire in the fire fights that regularly take place in this densely packed settlement. Most of the casualties are children, teenagers—14 year olds toting automatic weapons are a common sight. It has the highest number of youths in prison and the largest number of people killed by gunfire of any favela in Rio de Janeiro. The police rarely come into this area except in armoured cars and gun battles between them and the drug gangs are a regular feature of life here. When the police do enter their presence is called out by fireworks ignited from the roof tops by scouts, a constant rolling cacophony that moves from street to street and which we will get used to during the coming days.

It is the drug gangs that rule this area, as a parallel state with their own systems of justice and policing, even networks of social support. Street corners typically have a table set up close to the intersection, with drugs and guns in open view, a young man staffing it as a combined scout, local muscle and retail salesman. The boxing club acknowledges this authority, a force that could shut it down should if it chose, but refuses any direct contact that could establish leverage or compromise it as an institution.

“Luta”, as it is affectionately known, is now an organisation with 150 full time staff, extensive funding from governments and business, international recognition, an affiliated project, or “Academy” in London England and its own line of designer sports gear. It is an acknowledged leader in its field and the source of much interest. It has come a long way from humble origins as the idea of a foot loose but brave Brit and a group of 10 youth boxers in this favela who, despite the odds, decided that he could take up the interests of blighted youth and build a source of light. He is interested to meet our group from war torn Congo, thinks we have the potential to take our group forward, to be a successful NGO, seems to see a bit of himself at an earlier time. We will do all we can not to disappoint the expectation.