I’ll wager there’s a group of Cariocas here in Copenhagen who’re still partying. After the victory for Rio winning the 2016 Games, who can blame them?
Hundreds of thousands gathered to celebrate on the famous Copacabana beach and I’m told Rio’s traffic ground to a halt all night. My thoughts, though, were up the hillside, just a few hundred yards from the picture postcard images of Rio into Vidigal – one of the oldest of the city’s favelas. There you’ll find a bear of a man called Guti Fraga and his many young apostles from Nos de Morro ('We of the hillside'). I was lucky enough to visit them in the summer of 2007 and their story is, in part, the story of Rio and why the IOC's decision means so much.
Fraga, a local journalist, concluded there must be an alternative for generations of young favela dwellers drawn into drug crime, gun battles and poverty. He scrambled together a modest budget from here and there, and then found sponsorship from one of Brazil's fast growing corporates to set up an arts and theatre centre in the heart of the favela.
Twenty years on it has trained thousands of local youngsters in drama, dance and music. The centre has now spawned many a successful actor for Brazilian soap operas and much of the cast of the film 'City of God'. Supported by the British Council, Nos de Murro linked up with the Royal Shakespeare Company and became a highlight of the RSC's recent Complete Works series. I hope they could now link up with the RSC's major project for London 2012's Cultural Olympiad.
I was shown around the labyrinth of studios and workshop spaces - each a level above the other as the centre climbs up the steep hillside above Rio. Everywhere there were young people from the community reading, deep in animated debate and preparing for their next performances.
As we emerged at the very top of the centre there was a small terrace clinging bravely to a cliff edge. The view says it all: one way sees the world's most famous expanse of sand, first glamorous Ipanema and then wild Copacabana beach, but look 30 degrees to the right and you see the sprawling favela, still pock marked in places by bullet holes.
The biggest party on the planet was on Copacabana - and a worthy celebration it was, too, with the Olympic and Paralympic movements boldly taking the 2016 Games to South America for the first time. But I'd have given anything to be up on the terrace with Fraga and the Nos de Morro.
The coming of the 2016 Games will mean as much to them as it did to bring Brazilian President Lula to tears following the IOC's historic decision. Their story will make the handover to Rio in the closing ceremony of London's Games in 2012 all the more special.
My Olympics
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