Favelas de Mariquinha

Yeah I know you’re all like “Geez Louise Ofentse how many more Florianapolis posts are there?”. Well I was there for a month and you all know how trigger happy I get with the shutter button on my camera, so I’ve got a bunch of pictures and where else can I share them if not here 🤷🏾‍♀️.

This post is about what I consider to be the highlights of the trip.

Favela da Mariquinha Street Art Tour:

This was a tour of the favelas and the artwork in and around the Favela da Mariquinha which could be considered one of the largest outdoor galleries.

A ARTE SALVA VIDAS which means ART SAVES LIVES

Our tour guide Alex was born and raised in Favela de Mariquinha and is a community leader and all round Mr Congeniality (He knew everybody in the neighbourhood and they all showed love) . He is involved in various projects aimed at increasing visibility and making a positive impact on his community through teaching kids about art, soccer, surfing & jujitsu . Alex knows the stories behind all the paintings and is passionate about sharing them. Here are a few of my favourite paintings:

And the view of the city from the favelas was absolutely gorgeous

* Check out Favela de Mariquinha on instagram @roledamariquinha

The next highlight was our visit to the Olodum Sul which is like a centre for the kids from the favelas. They have all types activities and programmes for the kids to learn skills from dance, to music, art and general life skills. It really is a great place they even have psychologists at the school. My favourite part is how they instilling a sense of black pride in the sense they teach the kids about black history and black pride which is very important as the region they’re in Santa Catrina is a predominately white area (80% white population). Being black is a struggle worldwide so having a space like this really is amazing.

We did a mini tour of the centre, did some dancing and we did capoeira with the kids it was so much fun.

Below are images of historic black people all over the walls as well as their new podcast studio, it really is so cool how they are teaching the kids all of this.