London 2012 blog

I’ve never been to South America and never experienced an emergency landing before. So when the pilot urged as all to adopt the “Brace – Brace – Brace” position for a rather hasty landing at Rio International, it was new territory in more ways than one.

The suspected fire in the hold turned out to be a suspect warning system, but the dramatic arrival was not a bad metaphor for a crash landing into this most dramatic of cities. Rio is hosting the Pan American games and clearly relishing the opportunity.

It’s a city of the most astonishing contrasts. Great wealth cheek by jaw with profound poverty – cutting edge technology and rapid development alongside the most laid-back-in-the sun beach life – sporting passions and cultural drive fueled from inspiration to live life beyond the vast “favelas” – or shanty communities.

I’ve come to learn from the very strong team mounting the Opening Ceremony and Torch Relay, but whilst here I’m taking in a couple of the ground breaking arts projects that have emerged from the “favelas”.

This morning my taxi crawled throught traffic along the famous Ipanema beach – its boutiques and restaurants serving the world’s beautiful people. Just as the beach runs out we take a sharp right up a single track road clinging on to what felt like a mountainside.

Within seconds we’re in the favela – one of the oldest and biggest in Rio. Its patchwork of breeze block shacks hang on to every square meter of hillside like barnacles on a ship wreck. Only months ago this favela was at “civil war” with its neighbouring community – rival drug gangs fighting over territory with running gun battles and many young casualties.

Today, however, it is bustling but peaceful. I’ve come to the Nos de Morro (“We of the hillside”) Project – right in the heart of the favela. Here in the 1980s a local journalist, Guti Fraga, decided that the community’s youngsters needed an alternative to drugs and poverty.

He set up a small drama, dance and performing arts centre – free to those taking part and run by volunteers. Twenty years later, and now supported by sponsorship, it trains hundreds of young people in acting, theatre skills and film making.

I’m shown around the labyrinth of studios and workshop spaces – each a level above the other as the centre continues to climb up the steep hillside. Everywhere there are young people from the community reading, deep in animated debate and preparing for their next performances. The centre has now spawned many a successful actor for Brasilian soap opera and much of the cast of the film “City of God”.

As we emerge at the very top of the centre there is a small terrace clinging bravely to a cliff edge. The view says it all – one way sees the the worlds most famous expanse of sand – first glamorous Ipanema and then wild Copacabana beach, but look thirty degrees to the right and you see the sprawling favela, still pock marked in places by bullet holes.

I’m greeted with a bear hug by Guti Fraga himself – still here, and still inspiring new generations to see a different future. He exudes warmth and positive energy like the best kind of sports coach.


















This is not a man who who’s going to be put off by a few local difficulties. He tells me about the work of the centre and in particular how a small group of his students were helped by the British Council to travel to the UK last year.

They were invited by the Royal Shakespeare Company to join a very special production of “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” at Stratford as part of the “Complete Works” season. It was clearly as life changing for the young Brasilians as it was rich in cultural resonance for the RSC.

Fraga is effervescent about the experience. He compares it to the impact of the Pan American Games in Rio. Although there is not a formal culture programme, he is convinced that the games will offer inspiration and opportunity for many of the centre’s youngsters. Some are lined up to join in the major ceremonies. He tells me he hopes that London 2012 can do the same thing and he’d love Nos de Morro to be involved in some way.

Two years ago when Seb addressed the IOC Congress and won the games for London he talked about 2012 inspiring the young of the world. . The examples don’t come much more graphic than this…