Brazil
FUTEBOL SOCIAL – ORGANIZAÇÃO CIVIL DE AÇÃO SOCIAL
Futebol Social – Organização Civil de Ação Social (Social Footbal – Civil Organisation for Social Action) provide sports and social training for players at a regional level, and organise tournaments across Brazil. Participants are encouraged to find permanent employment to help them out of poverty.
In addition to football training, participants are expected to take part in other activities to aid their integration into society, such as workshops on education, relationships, and social awareness.
Team Brazil is backed by Romário, one of the greatest football legends in Brazil, who has expressed his support on many occasions.
Country statistics
84 out of 189 in Human Development Index rankings (UNDP 2020)
$14,500 Average salary per person (World Bank 2020)
26% of the 212 million population live below the poverty line (World Population Review 2021
Despite Brazil being hailed in the early 2000s as one of the emerging ‘BRIC’ economic power houses, alongside Russia, India and China, the 2010 decade saw reduced revenue from a decline in oil prices, government over-spending and mismanagement of inflation. The ensuing economic depression plunged millions into poverty and homelessness.
Compounded even more by the Covid-19 pandemic, Brazil started 2021 with the extreme poverty rate rising to over 12% or 27 million people, more than the population of Australia. Folha de S.Paolo, 2021. One in four Brazilians are either homeless or live in ‘inadequate housing’. The housing deficit is more pronounced in Rio De Janeiro, where an estimated 20% of residents live in informal shantytown-favelas, lacking access to running water, sanitation, healthcare, and public education.
One of the recent facts about poverty in Brazil is that squatters have collectively chosen to occupy abandoned hotels and face a constant threat of eviction. Brazil’s gentrification has created a revolution of homeless people occupying space both as a protest and out of necessity. The world-known MTST Homeless Workers Movement and others like the Mauá Occupation, continue to march and protest about housing inequalities, land rights and access to basic sanitation.
Brazil hosted the Homeless World Cup in Rio de Janeiro in 2010.
STORIES from the region
