Covid-19 Challenges In Rio's Favelas

Lockdown and Budget Reallocation

The project Is currently shut down until further notice. This means there are about 30 students who will not be paying the monthly fees that cover the salary of head instructor Fabricio Silva.

The other instructors, Vinicius dos Santos, Alexandre Ribeiro (Buda), and Guilherme Alves are volunteers and do not receive salaries, but they were receiving a substantial amount of their income from private classes and one on one training sessions.

At the time we are only able to support Vinicius dos Santos with a small monthly stipend to help him continue his college courses and the motivational BJJ course for BJJ athletes and instructors that was launched in 2019 by Mahamed Aly.

Distance Learning

Education in this time of uncertainty has been a difficult task but as always the community banded together to find creative solutions.

As many parents and students have discovered in the last month, the transition to at-home, online learning has been anything but easy. At best, online platforms are being overloaded and are crashing due to the increased influx of users. At worst, students don't have access to computers, the internet, or enough rooms in their house to provide a quiet environment conducive to learning.

But as always, the community banned together to find creative solutions. A friend of the project has been copying and distributing educational materials to kids in the community so that they continue their at-home learning.

Pictures of our little ones studying at home!