Ingenuity Welcome to Rio

This programme contains some strong language

With the World Cup and Olympics on the way,

the whole planet is looking to one city.

Welcome to Rio.

One in five of us live in parts of the city you tourists

will never know.

Rio's famous favelas.

These gang-run shanty towns are dotted

all across our marvellous city.

What our favelas lack in law and order and government services

we make up for with close-knit communities

and great resourcefulness.

We're experts at making something from nothing.

THEY SPEAK IN PORTUGUESE THROUGHOUT

Surviving on our wits.

Moving with the times and keeping our eye on the prize.

Now many of us find our livelihoods under threat

as the government tries to clean up our city for your arrival.

But whatever they do, we'll find a way to get what we want.

THEY CHEER

Come into a world no tourist has ever seen.

Meet a new breed of entrepreneurs that can only be made in Brazil.

Rio is a city of extremes.

The very rich live alongside the very poor.

We're famously sexy, yet deeply religious.

Even our climate swings between glorious sun and torrential rain.

But one thing is constant. We're wonderful hosts, and in honour of

your World Cup and Olympic visits, we're having a little tidy-up.

We're building new stadiums, new roads,

and chasing drug traffickers out of the favelas near your hotels.

But just outside our beautiful city

lies one of the world's greatest eyesores.

The region's rubbish dump.

14 million square feet of rotting garbage,

the largest landfill site in the world.

A whole community of rubbish pickers, or 'catadors',

have built a favela alongside the dump.

But Rio's clean-up operation knows no mercy. The dump is shutting down,

and all the catadors have lost their jobs.

People like Rosie here, and her husband Marcos.

Rosie and Marcos have seven children to feed,

so when they first heard rumours the landfill was going to close,

they decided to start their own business,

a recycling centre in their own back yard.

Rosie and Marcos spent every penny they had on an old truck,

so they could collect rubbish from restaurants and shopping malls.

It's not quite top of the range.

Wherever Marcos spies a bin bag, he sees a potential pot of gold.

Once the rubbish is back at the yard, nothing goes to waste.

As well as sorting and recycling plastics, cardboard, cans

and scrap metal, Rosie and Marcos also recycle food waste.

And it's not just pigs, chickens or dogs that get the spoils.

Rosie and Marcos live in the yard in a wooden shack,

which they share with five of their seven kids.

It's got everything a family needs, but it isn't waterproof.

And with winter rains only a few months away,

Rosie has started work on a dream.

A proper brick house for her family.

Rosie's favela, Gramacho Gardens, has been devastated

by the closure of the dump.

Dump workers have been promised thousands of pounds

of government compensation,

but so far lots of them, Rosie included, haven't seen a penny.

The dump isn't the only victim of Rio's clean-up operation.

There are around 1,000 favelas, dotted throughout the city,

most run by drug-trafficking gangs.

One by one, the government are driving out the gangs

and installing new favela police.

So far they have reduced guns and crime on the street,

but Rio's police are real party poopers.

One of the most popular freedoms of our gang-controlled favelas

are our all-night parties.

We call them 'bailes'. We even have our own style of music.

It's called baile funk. It's not for the faint-hearted.

CHEERING

On stage is one of funk's first female stars, Juliana Forgosa,

famous for her special brand of feisty favela feminism.

In the audience is Thamy Delicia, a rising star in the baile funk scene.

These explicit baile funk singers are aiming to empower women,

favela style.

Though they are not to everyone's taste.

Thamy lives in a favela called Rio Das Pedras, near her parents.

They're deeply traditional,

and don't approve of her career

as a raunchy funk singer of funkeira.

Most mother-daughter relationships have moments of tension,

but being the evangelical mother of a funkeira

presents a special challenge.

Approve or not, there's a lot of work goes into Thamy Delicia.

As well as her hair and nail extensions, there's her physique,

which for funkeiras is all about big bums and big legs.

All the dance routines for Thamy's shows are designed

to show off her perfect funkeira physique.

To you, all this bottom shaking may look a bit one-note,

but if you're young and from the favelas, that's the style.

Thamy's mum comes to work every day at this bus station

selling home-made sandwiches and drinks.

Thamy doesn't intend to follow in her mum's footsteps in any way.

Like Thamy's family, nearly all of us practice some sort of religion.

Catholicism and Evangelical Christianity rub shoulders

with Afro-Brazilian religions like Candomble and Umbanda,

so there's a religious festival of some kind every other week.

One of our favourites in Rio is St George's Day.

Patron saint of Portugal and England,

Rio's Sao Jorge day puts our European cousins to shame.

And perhaps the best thing about having faith is just that,

it gives us faith.

Faith that tomorrow will be a beautiful day,

that we'll sell more snacks to the tourists,

that the sea will give up her treasure

if we ask her nicely enough.

Jorge rakes the sand on Rio's beaches for gold jewellery,

lost by decades of tourists.

He was bitten by the gold rush bug 30 years ago, and has raised

a family on the proceeds. He still loves every minute of it.

OK, so there isn't a jackpot every day.

But the important thing is to keep the faith.

HE SINGS

Jorge is a favela entrepreneur.

He works the hours he chooses,

and supports his family without taking orders from anyone.

There are favela entrepreneurs everywhere you look in Rio.

Selling bikinis on the beach, cutting hair in the favelas,

or slaking thirsts in the traffic jams.

It's another one of our favela freedoms.

Beyond government regulation, favela entrepreneurs don't have

to fill out any forms, or get permits.

They can just get on with making a profit.

Rosie and Marcos are very successful favela entrepreneurs.

They're giving the orders now.

Well, Rosie is, anyway...

Rosie's business is a lifeline to her workers,

and their jobs come with all sorts of benefits.

But right now, money's tight, winter's coming

and construction on the new house has halted.

They urgently need to sell some recycling.

Rosie's buyers are all men, and it's traditional for them

to deal with another man. In this case, Marcos.

But working that way is a bit like having one hand

tied behind her back.

Rosie may moan about Marcos,

but it was his gentle nature that first attracted her to him.

Five of Rosie's seven children are from her previous husband,

a very different kind of man.

At first glance,

Gramacho may not look like the ideal place to raise your family,

but if Rosie's kids want for anything, they don't realise it.

And no childhood is complete without an ice cream van.

When it comes to the big celebrations,

Rosie and Marcos love to pull out all the stops.

It may be life on a landfill, but Rosie feels blessed

that she is able to provide all this for her family.

Until Rosie can get her house finished,

there are seven of them squashed together in the shack.

It may not be dry, but it is warm.

There are winners and losers in our World Cup and Olympic preparations.

For every job lost at the dump,

there will be more tourist dollars to chase on the beaches.

And people are coming to Rio from all over Brazil

determined to cash in.

Is it a bird?

Is it a plane?

No, it's a...pineapple salesman.

HE SINGS

Assis is from a town in the north-east, almost 3,000 miles away.

He left his wife and four children to come here.

It's a big sacrifice to make.

From pineapple salesmen to sun hat hawkers,

the beach is our place of work.

Even funkeiras don't relax on the sand.

Thamy's tireless pursuit of her career means even her tanning

is approached in a business-like way.

You guys may have caught on to the benefits of a Brazilian wax,

but Thamy goes much further with her body hair management.

Thamy may not be famous outside the favelas,

but to the young women from the favelas she's a star.

-Tchau.

-Tchau.

Thamy's got a gig tonight in a favela called Complexo Do Mare.

It's rumoured to be next on the list for police invasion,

which means every baile here could be their last.

The hottest funk music is called 'Probidao' - prohibited -

because its lyrics are full of sex and swear words, and gang-controlled

favelas are the only place it's allowed to be played.

In case the men haven't spotted who's in charge,

funkeiras traditionally pull someone out of the audience

to play a little game they call 'brinka dera', joking around.

If Thamy is to make it big beyond the favelas she is going to have

to cross over to the mainstream, which means cleaning up her act.

Sometimes the people closest to us can feel the furthest away.

But we're tied to our loved ones.

Across generations, across great distances.

Not even death can pull us apart.

HE BLOWS WHISTLE

Jorge is no stranger to life's riptides.

He has his own reasons for wanting to stop anyone else going under.

In Rio, it never rains. But it pours.

Our favelas are vulnerable to the rain.

Our corrugated roofs leak, our steep streets become streams,

our open sewers overflow,

and heaven help those of us still living in wooden shacks.

The rains are starting

and Rosie's new house still isn't finished.

But there is a ray of hope.

The buyer for the fine plastic has finally turned up.

And if they get a good price for it, Rosie's house can have a roof.

As usual, Rosie has no choice but to let Marcos do the talking.

It doesn't take long, but it's not good news.

Rosie will have to find another way to pay for the roof on her house.

In theory, she should be due a windfall

from the government compensation scheme,

but she's not holding her breath.

Her friend Nevinha has been waiting over a year for her money.

Rosie decides to sell a pig

so she can at least afford the materials to build the roof.

And this time she's taking no chances with the negotiations.

It's not just the weather getting Assis down today.

It's his birthday, and he's miles away from friends and family.

You have to be tough in business.

You have to see which way the wind is blowing and act accordingly.

Thamy has work to do if she's going to cross over to the mainstream.

She's recorded a song with toned-down lyrics,

and today she's shooting the video.

There's a lot riding on its success, and Thamy's giving it her all.

But even this new, toned-down funk is too much for Thamy's mum.

She's hatched a plan to persuade Thamy back to the righteous path.

A visit to her grandmother.

Sometimes it takes the wisdom of age to see things clearly.

With her grandma's blessing, Thamy can get back to pursuing her dream,

and perhaps her mum will start to see Thamy's courage as a virtue.

Over at Rosie's, the weather is still putting a dampener on things.

It's affecting her core business, recycling water bottles.

Even with one less wage to pay, Rosie still can't finish the roof.

Now would be a really good time for that compensation payment

to materialise.

But with the workings of Brazilian bureaucracy at best opaque,

Rosie's turning to the gods of an Afro-Brazilian religion

called Candomble.

Never one to rest on her laurels, Rosie sets to work.

She has all the materials for the roof from selling the pig.

But she still needs to find labour.

Luckily, she lives in a favela.

Favelas are built by their communities

and the word is spreading that Rosie needs help.

Sweetened by the promise of a hog roast...

Rosie and Marcos may have started just a little too early though.

It's Sunday, which means most people were at the baile last night.

Sure enough, people do start turning up.

And to the victors, the spoils.

Roast pork and cold beer.

That's the greatest thing about favela life.

Being 'gente', one of us.

We'll feed you when you're hungry, shelter you when it rains,

and celebrate your good fortune with beer and song.

Family is at the heart of being gente.

Thamy's got a lot riding on her mainstream video launch, but since

the visit to her grandmother, she's had a lot more support from her mum.

Assis is back home in the north-east,

playing with his children,

vowing Pineapple Man will return to Rio some day.

And family life for Rosie is about to be transformed.

With her compensation money, she can finish her dream house.

Finally, Jorge's faith is always rewarded in the end.

Our favela communities have a saying that sums it up.

'Estamos juntos', we are together.

THEY CHEER

That's why, given the choice, so many of us

wouldn't live anywhere else.