Welcome DJ Dembore

 

I met Dembore through interesting circumstances. He saw a flyer about our DJ School Spin Rocinha on the wall of the Surfing school. He called me in half belief that we had a dj school that was FREE. Dj schools in Rio are very expensive so he was very suprised to find about our project. He told me that he dj'ed in the USA, Newark New Jersey for 6 years and wanted to know if he could come by to see the school. Of course I told him, sure! I want you to get to know him a little better.

 

Dembore, Where are you from? I was born in Minas Gerais another state here in Brazil. When I was 16, I had the opportunity to go and live in the United States but returned after 6 years because my mother got very sick. I wanted to help my mother. After she got well, I decided I wanted to leave the rural living in Minas and go to Rio for more opportunities.

 

Where do you live and how long you have been living here? I live here in Rocinha after living in Rio Centro (downtown). I was working in a hotel and I met a guy who told me about a house for rent in Rocinha. I grew up very poor in a favela in Minas Gerais, so I know how the life and the rules in favelas.

 

Why did you decide to live in Rocinha? My friend told me about a cheap house for rent and I know Rocinha has everything. Its like a city inside a city. My girlfriend at first didnt like the idea as the media says bad things about favelas, but after a while now she likes it here.

 

What do you like about Rocinha? We have everything here, transportation is good, we have banks, stores and most of all the people are really friendly and helpful. When I first moved here, my neighbors offered me help with anything, food, clothes, whatever I needed. Its nice to know that people care about each other here.

 

What do you do here in Rocinha? I work as a tour guide with Zezinho for Favela Adventures and help with Spin Rocinha, the Dj school. We do favela visits but also try to provide a great experience showing our favela to the world. There is so much that foreigners can do here. You can play football with the locals, paintball, surfing, jiu jitsu or go to a funk party. The idea is to show the world that we in favelas can provide a awesome experience for our guests and involve other residents for the opportunity of cultural exchange. We need to show the world that the favela is so much more than the negative stuff you see on television. I like meeting people from all over the world and educating about our life here in the biggest favela in Brazil!

 

And the Dj School, what do you think of this project? I think this is a great idea. To learn to dj at a school is very expensive and no way youth or adults from the favela have this amount of money for this. Now that the city of Rio de Janeiro has recognized dj'ing as a profession, this will be great for our students to have opportunities to play in clubs all over the city. Or just to enjoy dj'ing as a hobby.

 

What do you do at Spin Rocinha? We teach the students the basics of dj'ing with hands on applications. We do teach a little about music theory and we have started recording the students mixes and getting them on our facebook page (Spin Rocinha) or soundcloud. We will start soon with music production so the students can create their own music but first we really want to develop their dj'ing skills, especially those that want to work professionally as a dj.

 

Is Spin Rocinha a registered non profit and do you receive funding or help from organizations or anyone? Right now, Spin Rocinha is not registered as a non profit but we ARE a grass roots non profit because Spin Rocinha does not generate any money. All our dj classes are free and I am a volunteer just like Zezinho in making this project happen. It is supported 100% through money we earn through making tours in the favela. At some point we may register but right now we like the idea that people in the favela know that Spin Rocinha exists because of the money we earn by making our tours here. The idea that Zezinho created was to use the money from the tours and put it back into the start of Spin Rocinha. We have received donations from several people. We received a mixer, microphones, a sound board. We did receive $50 from Blessings for Brazil, a NGO in Cantagalo favela, but we bought pen drives for the students to store their music and mixes created in the school.

 

Any special visitors to the dj school? Yes, we have had several people who have checked out Spin Rocinha. In Rio, I have some connections with clubs and somefamous dj's in the city. Dj Duda Santtos who is a radio dj for Transamerica, Flavia Xexeo and Nath Carreiro have stopped by to see our project and have given workshops. Through our tours many dj's have visited as well. We encourage people to see Spin Rocinha. And always welcome volunteers.

 

What do you see in your future? So many things. I want to continue working making the tours because this helps the Dj school to develop. We want to expand Spin Rocinha to a bigger place because right now the school is in Zezinho's bedroom. We want to buy a place here in the favela so Spin Rocinha can have its own home. The idea is to have a full recording studio with classroom and space for 10-15 students each class. I want to help Zezinho develop this project into the most awesome Dj school in Rio and have people from all over the world see what we in favelas can do if given the chance!

 

How do we contact you about the tours and the dj school? I can be contacted about Spin Rocinha at djdembore1@gmail.com or 21-7900-6845 Zezinho handles the tours and you can contact him at visitrocinha@gmail.com or 21-8221-5572

Donations

 

In working with tourism, I gain access to many people who want to help. I am in a great position to help people here in the favela. There are many great projects that need help but never get it. A couple of months ago I received a email from a woman named Joanne from a education project in the United States. She told me that she wanted to donate school supplies. I have access to three different NGO's here that can use any type of school supplies, pens, pencils, notebooks, markers and anything children can use to improve their learning experience.

 

I like to show people in my blog the wonderful people that come into my life and enable me to help others here in Rocinha. Joanne sent a box full of pencil holders with pencils, eraser and pencil sharpeners to give to the kids. The holders are docorated with stick on designs. I took two days and walked in different areas of the favela with a bag full of these kits and distributed them to school age kids.

 

I want to thank everyone who has ever donated to projects here in the favela, it does make a difference. The fotos above are of some of the encounters with children who received these kits.

Monsters come to visit Rocinha

 

I get interesting requests from visitors to the favela. A representative from Universal Nutrition Vitamins and Supplements contacted me about some bodybuilders who are here for the Bodybuilding Expo/Arnold Classic. They are doing the tourist route of Sugar Loaf and Christ and they had a unique request. They wanted to see the favela butI thought why not combine a tour with two things bodybuilders need to do? Workout and eat!

 

Living in Rocinha is a great place because we have everything here. We have 5 gyms and many great healthy places to work out. The best place we have to work out is R1 Fitness near the bottom of the favela. The gym has been upgraded and looks like any gym that you would see in any middle class neighborhood. It even has a swimming/exercise pool and plenty of aerobic classes to satisfy anybody. The gym is two floors. The basement or bottom floor has the pool with mens and womens changing rooms and a juice bar. The second floor is a mix of machines and free weight area. The third floor is a air conditioned cardio room with bikes, treadmills and stairmasters. next door is a room just for spinning. The last room is a open space used for aerobics, stretching, yoga or any other kind of movement classes. The top floor is a roof top where meetings or parties are held. For a favela, its state of the art! We have a few other gyms but this is the best choice for these guys. They even had some heavy weights.

 

Universal Nutrition (UN) from New Jersey has been around since 1977 providing bodybuilders with much needed supplementation. Next door to the gym has opened a supplement shop called "Strange Nutrition" and I was suprised to see that they have UN products. The visitors took photos of the products in the shop and commented on how expensive the products were. Import taxes really raise the prices so much that Brazilians pay about 2.5 times the "regular" price. There was a huge bag of Whey Protein that sold for 430 reais which is about 215US$, when in the US you can buy this same product for about 80US$. Crazy!!!!

 

Frank McGrath is a 34 years old professional bodybuilder who lives in Toronto. His friend Antoine Vaillant, 25 years old, amateur bodybuilder is from Quebec, Canada. Antoine is going for his pro card. The third guy of the group was Jorlan Vieira, also a bodybuilder, lives in Rio was acting as a tour guide for the group. Eric Schwartz and Travis Poulsen were promoters for UN and were there to workout and also film the travel journeys of the team. These bodybuilders are sponsored by UN so they receive products and other perks.

 

After they worked out, I took them to one of our best restaurants "Trapia". Its a por kilo places where the food is set up buffet style and you take what you want but you pay by weight. There is also a area where theres a guy who will cut for you 10 different types of meat, from sirloin to chicken hearts. The prices are very reasonable and the food is great. Frank and Antoine ate clean but Jorlan didnt seem to have a competition coming up so he had french fries on his plate.

 

After eating, we walked through the favela a little and I took them over the pasarella (footbridge) so they could see how big the favela is from the bottom. It was fun to see the reactions of the residents seeing these huge muscular men walking through the favela. I couldnt help but laugh because to have professional bodybuilders here is not common at all. Only once before did I have three bodybuilders visit here from Sweden. I love the work I do. I get to meet the most amazing people from all over the world!

 

I hope team Universal Nutrition comes back for a visit! But next time we can take more time to walk through and see the favela!

Teaching people how to Fish

Agencia Redes de Juventude (Youth Networking Agency) I remember being approached by the girl about 18 years old wearing a blue t-shirt with the word AGENCIA across the front, on the streets of my favela about 4 months ago. She told me that I should come to a meeting to promote my dj school. I had the date set to go but somehow forgot the meeting and I was upset. I later found out that Agencia Redes de Juventude (ARJ) is a city funded project with interest in helping favela communities. I was not sure how they helped as I was just told to go to the meeting and I would find out more. The ARJ fund youth who have new ideas about how to create a sustainable business in their favelas. I forgot about this until about 1 month ago I was contacted by representatives from ARJ. They asked me if I could help one of their grant receivers with their project. I told them sure. The ARJ contact persons name was Rafaelle and she sent me emails about Joao Batista the youth recepient. Joao told me that he wanted to start his project with the idea of developing tour guides in his favela of Providencia. He found me on the internet and our website. Morro da Providencia is rich in history and is known as the first favela that exist in Rio de Janeiro. The hill was settled in 1897 by ex slaves and soldiers from the War of Canudos. So, historically Providencia could be developed, if done right into a tourist destination. On March 27th, Dembore, my partner, and I met Rafaelle, Joao and a youth reporter who writes for the ARJ web site at the Copacabana Palace. We took the favela transport to the top of Rocinha and slowly decended talking about how we set up our tours and routes depending on tourists interests. We eventually made it to our DJ school Spin Rocinha, where we spoke more about marketing and the business of running tours in a favela. I tried to give him as many ideas based on what I have experienced working with tourism here in Rocinha. I would like to be able to eventually help other favelas like City of God set up cultural tours in their favela. I am open and available to help those who support sustainable tourism for these communities! Its like the expression “I would rather teach the people who to fish, instead of just giving them the fish”. Joao received 10,000 reais from ARJ to start his tourism company in Providencia . This will be needed for him to build a website, make business cards, marketing and much more. Joao’s plan is to study about the history and talk to elders about Providencia. Then he wants to find a route through the community that will be interesting for foreigners to see. He plans to train 5 guides that will work with his “company”. He has alredy picked a name “Provitour” for his company. I told him that if he ever needs help to contact me. I will keep in contact with him. I am posting fotos for you to see of our day with ARJ. Heres a link to a article that was written about our day with ARJ in Rocinha: http://agenciarj.org/novas-visoes-das-favelas-atraves-do-turismo/

Dj Meeting March 10, 2013

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At the DJ School Spin Rocinha we always like to show whats going on. We have had the oportunity to have the students play in the public. Every month now at the bottom of the favela, there is a group of Dj's that are organizing a "Meeting of Dj's". The purpose of this is for people in the community to get to hear various dj's from the favela playing music. Its also a great opportunity for new dj's and our students to get to meet some of the established dj's in the favela. Its a great exchange of ideas with everybody benefitting. Our students get to see the older guys in action and can ask questions about anything relating to dj'ing. The most common conversations have to do with equipment, what people are using and where to buy stuff. The meeting we had on the 20 March, we brought our 2 Cdj's and a mixer. Other dj's brought turntables and speakers. We had 2 dj's from Rio das Pedras (another favela) come who were turntablists. Dj Nilo and Dj Fabricio came to show the favela their skills in scratching. Dj Gordura who is well known lives in a small favela down the street from Rocinha. His focus is playing beats on the mpc machine. He also is well connected with many famous funk artists here in Rio, creating beats for them. I have put some fotos here of the event. Next event will be April 14th. I feel so fortunate to be part of this project where so many people can enjoy music through dj'ing!

Finding reliable help

Me and my silly cat Fuzzy who likes to Dj.. And im not talking about domestic help. As most people know, I work in tourism and its very frustrating trying to find reliable people. But theres is that saying that goes "nobody will ever care more for your business than you". This is so true! I prefer to hire people from inside the favela but its dificult. The major problem is that I can only offer somebody part time work as I dont have enough work. Most people have full time work so the last thing they want is more work when they have time off. Working in tourism is like any other work. It work! But I see a pattern where people dont take it serious. They think its like play time or the dont respect tourists time restrictions. My american side always believes in the customer first because without them, I dont get paid. Showing up late, to me is not showing respect for other persons time. I have only been late twice since I started tours over 5 years ago. The most I was ever late was 7 minutes. I apologized to my guests who didnt seem to notice but still, I hate being late. I love my work and I am very appreciative and thankful for all the good karma that has come my way in the last 3 years especially. I think I have figured out why some guys have this lack of responsibility. The experiences I am talking about are dealing with men, not women. Brazilian guys in general are lazy. Let me explain. Americans, once they turn about 18 are encouraged to be more independant and either go to work or school. In Brazil, I know guys 30 or 40 still living with their parents. So, I see this as a negative because Brazilian guys who live at home with their parents seem to mature later. These are jusy MY observations. When you live with mommy and daddy and you dont pay rent, food or other bills, they wash your clothes and cook you food, its easy to not be as motivated.. I have two examples, Leo who is 21, still lives with his parents, says he wants a job but his actions show different. He doesnt pay any bills. He has a cell phone but never calls people. People call him, which I think is strange. He shows up late or not at all. I sent him a text message a few days ago about work, he never showed up, no message, nothing. This is not the kind of guy who deserves a job because hes not motivated. The shame in all of this is that he speaks fluent English. Dembore is a totally different guy. He came to Rio 10 months ago from Minas Gerais. He came to make a better life for himself and his girlfriend. When he was working for me, he also held down a second job at night as a waiter in a hotel. Since beginning of October, he has quit the other job and is now only working with me. Dembore lives with his girlfriend who has a part time job and is involved with theatre productions. He lives on his own, not under his parents roof. He pays rent, electricity, water, cable and internet. He ALWAYS shows up ontime and most times is early. He drinks minimally in his off time and his actions show responsibility. Dembore is 24, only 3 years older than Leo but there is a huge difference is how they live their lives. Leo is the life of the party with very little responsibility and Dembore is in bed at midnight most nights to rest for the next days work. I have gone through 5 tour guides working with me in the last 2 years and its been very frustrating, but now I think I have a keeper in Dembore. He is also a dj and loves being involved in the dj school. Thank goodness I have finally found a person of quality that wants to grow with the expansion of the dj school and loves making tours here. Leo needs to take life more seriously. He needs to get off his mothers tit and grow up. But im not his daddy..Some things you need to figure out on your own.

Police Occupation and UPP

The twenty-eighth Pacifying Police Unit (UPP) in Rio de Janeiro, was installed last month, the 20th, one of Latin America's largest favelas, Rocinha. The installation of the UPP in the community is the continuity of real war operation, preceded with the help of the Special Operations Battalion (BOPE), Shock Battalion and Navy officers nearly a year ago. I have mixed feelings about being under occupation by a corrupt and unfriendly police force. The do not make any attempt to befriend the residents and can be very hostile and agressive to residents here. About 98% of the residents here are hard working honest people who just make very little money and have no other option but to live in the favela. The favela was already partially occupied by the forces of BOPE and Military Police, with an effective range of 400 men. However, the inauguration of this UPP which will feature nine bases distributed throughout the community, with a staff of more than 700 police officers, a comprehensive system of monitoring and patrolling 24 hours, consolidates the occupation and allows to form a system of control and surveillance lot higher against residents. "Officers from UPP Rocinha count with the help of 100 monitoring cameras installed throughout the community, and 12 motorcycles, considered fundamental to patrol the hundreds of alleys that cut through the favela. The command of the UPP will be in charge of Major Édson Raimundo dos Santos, who heads the same actions from the beginning of the permanent occupation by the police. "(Network Brazil Current, 9/24/2012). The installation of the base in Rocinha is a key part of the plan to besiege the city, isolating neighborhoods "noble" poor areas. The favela is in the heart of the South Zone and separates the neighborhoods of Ipanema and Leblon from the region of São Conrado and Barra da Tijuca, and the UPP in Rocinha, the government intends to form a corridor that would link the neighborhoods of the south and this region, providing a key step in the formation of a sort of "Green Zone" in the city, similar to deployed by the U.S. invasion in the city of Baghdad. The occupation, therefore, is a landmark of political repression and violence against the poor communities of Rio, organized directly by the government and the right to promote speculation and repress the population. Moreover, while the occupation is a hallmark of that policy, it is also a challenge to the bourgeoisie with a great chance of failing. The experience with the occupation in other communities, such as the Complexo do Alemao, City of God, etc., clearly showed that the population is not willing to live with the wrongdoings by the military in the hills. What the capitalist press sought to present as a combat drug trafficking in reality proved a real dictatorship against the people and a policy of favoring contractors, as well as crime, trafficking and crime continue to exist only otherwise directly controlled by the police. There still exists drug trafficking here but its more hidden and the police are part of it happening. They take their bribes from the traffickers every month as like before. Hundreds of demonstrations and clashes followed the occupations in almost all favelas. Allegations of abuse of power, indiscriminate violence, torture and theft practiced by the UPP police were recorded in areas of hostility and occupations of residents police presence is total. These incidents are happening every day but not being reported in the main stream news. I hear of cases of police abuse at least 2-3 times a week, usually against innocent people who have nothing to do with any illegal activity. To occupy and control a community inhabited by over 200,000 people in an area of ​​840 thousand square meters steeped in abject poverty and poverty is only a policy that will result in the confrontation with the people, politics is a fascist, certainly desperate to increase further the unwillingness of the public against the police and will inevitably lead to a complete demoralization. The UPP therefore has the sole purpose of controlling and monitoring the population of Rocinha, suppress poverty and meet the plans of the bourgeoisie who want to profit from the increased social segregation in the city. My fear is once the olympic games and world cup are finished, that the police units will leave and there will be a fight for Rocinha for selling drugs by one of the three gangs that dominate Rio's drug sales.