What Happens When Brazil’s Favelas Take On The World Of Online Gaming?

Kids are creating their own digital futures! Two new video games created by children in the favela of Vigário Geral launched in December.

TECHNOLOGY

WORLD

9 MINS READ

DATE

JULY 1, 2023

AUTHOR

Anna Fleck

Anna is a journalist with a background in international news and storytelling. Her focus became environmental and social justice issues, which she is now learning how to approach through a lens of data journalism.

One of the factors working against the 12 million people living in Brazil’s lower-income communities or favelas is digital isolation. According to the Locomotive Research Institute, 43% of the residents have little to no access to 3G or 4G internet networks, and regular broadband internet services are often unavailable. At the same time, families can’t always afford computers at home, and public schools lack resources as they are severely underfunded.

The pandemic brought the severity of this situation to light, as school closures meant that over four million students missed out on education because they didn’t have access to remote learning or in-person classes. Of these, Black or Indigenous students and those from lower income households, were hit the hardest.

Cassiane Cardoso dos Santos, a 17-year-old student from Vigário Geral, a favela in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, is one such student. She explains: “At the beginning of the pandemic it was very difficult because in order to study, I had to have access to the internet and I didn't have it at that time. So it was very difficult not only for me but also for my brothers. This ended up affecting my grades a lot and also my siblings' learning.”

For Thais Xavier, a 23-year-old Illustrator and Game Developer who lives in Tijuca, another Rio neighbourhood, this is also a problem. “Things got really bad in the community where I live. The reality was that a lot of people were losing their jobs and had nothing to eat. The course I was changing from being in-person to online classes, which prejudiced me since I didn't have the necessary equipment at home for what the class was about”, she said.

But one initiative is opening the doors to an alternative kind of education, and even a potential source of income.

Where? In the unlikely world of video games.

AfroGames is a Rio-based non-profit that defines itself as the world’s first eSports player training centre inside a slum. Kitted out with expensive, state-of-the-art gaming equipment, it provides 100 young people, aged 12 and over, with classes in Game Programmin...