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Hopefully the pictures come through. I am technologically challenged and my firewall at work messes things up.
Last summer, I started a project aimed at collecting and distributing training gear for underprivileged children living in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. I was offering support to an already existing social project in the Cantagalo favela, run by the Vieira Brothers (Checkmat). I wanted to provide an update as to the status of this project and account for what money (raised from auctions and donations) has been spent where, in case anyone was curious as to what became of my project. I received significant support both from this message board, as well as from the martial arts community in general. I heard someone else did a gi drive once, and was sketchy and kept all the donations, so I want to be transparent.
During the summer of 2015, I was able to stay in Rio de Janeiro for a month thanks to an athlete sponsorship from Connection Rio (I am a brown belt under Ryan Hall). During that time, I trained at Fightzone in Copacabana (Rico Vieira’s Checkmat gym) and made many friends amongst the training partners I encountered. They showed me around the favela and brought me to the social project and explained its history and importance within the community. I’ve never done charitable work before, but I was so impressed by the spirit of the children and their desire to learn Jiu Jitsu that I believed I could help support what I felt was a very important undertaking in their community, as it supports the children, offers mentorship, and keeps them off the streets as well as away from violence, drugs and crime that one often encounters in the slums.
I collected gear (kimonos, muay thai and boxing equipment, clothing and very importantly, rash guards (so that the girls of Rio have adequate equipment to participate as well), and then later, money from donations and gear auctions to support some particular difficulties the social project faced due to lack of funding. Here is where the money went:
My friend Nico Ball manages the Terere Kid’s Project at Terere’s academy in Ipanema. She put out a request for donations in order to install new lighting fixtures in the academy. You can’t wrestle in the dark, so this was a no-brainer, and we paid half of the cost.
One of the difficulties faced in the Vieria Brothers social project was a lack of access to water. You need to install a special water fountain that filters the drinking water because it is not clean in Brazil, which is very expensive. Otherwise, the children would literally have to carry their water up the mountain if they even had access to clean water in the first place, and this was not an acceptable situation. We donated half the cost of the water fountain which has just recently been installed in the academy.
An important aspect of this project to me was not only providing the kids with a safe place to do something constructive, but to hopefully provide an opportunity to build a life and travel outside the reaches of the slums. We made a decent donation to Checkmat and Vieira Brothers Social Project athlete Jonatas Gomes, who traveled as a 17 year old to California to participate in the purple belt light featherweight division of the Pan American games. This is the second biggest jiu jitsu tournament in the world. He defeated the division favorite in the very first round and made it all the way to the final, where he finished with a silver medal after (if I remember correctly) six fights. We will be sponsoring Jonatas again for the World Championships in June, as well as the kid’s team as a whole for a large tournament in Rio at the end of the month.
Of course, the primary focus of this project was to provide gear to the children, and this is HALF of what has been sent to Cantagalo. Full of new and used kimonos, boxing gloves, rash guards, clothing and shorts to outfit the athletes in everything from infant to adult sizes. It was really cool to collect all these things from all over the country. We had orders from Jiu Jitsu gear distributors shipped straight to my house, donations mailed in, dropped off at my academy, and a separate drive to support that project run in Baltimore as well. I still have stacks of gis at my home ready to go out, and while tedious to package and transport, this is going to be a tremendous help for the children and athletes of the favela.
Next on the radar: The mats are in disrepair and need to be fixed. We are going to start raising money again soon to donate to new tatami for the Vieria Brothers Social Project to ensure the safety and upkeep of the training environment for the children.
If you are interested in checking out the social project, you can take a look at my friend Antonio’s Instagram, who is a black belt that instructs at the project: antoniocarlosjrg
You can also take a look at this video which gives the history of the project and illustrates the need for it in the Cantagalo community:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/yGmdWZ0BuvY
Last summer, I started a project aimed at collecting and distributing training gear for underprivileged children living in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. I was offering support to an already existing social project in the Cantagalo favela, run by the Vieira Brothers (Checkmat). I wanted to provide an update as to the status of this project and account for what money (raised from auctions and donations) has been spent where, in case anyone was curious as to what became of my project. I received significant support both from this message board, as well as from the martial arts community in general. I heard someone else did a gi drive once, and was sketchy and kept all the donations, so I want to be transparent.
During the summer of 2015, I was able to stay in Rio de Janeiro for a month thanks to an athlete sponsorship from Connection Rio (I am a brown belt under Ryan Hall). During that time, I trained at Fightzone in Copacabana (Rico Vieira’s Checkmat gym) and made many friends amongst the training partners I encountered. They showed me around the favela and brought me to the social project and explained its history and importance within the community. I’ve never done charitable work before, but I was so impressed by the spirit of the children and their desire to learn Jiu Jitsu that I believed I could help support what I felt was a very important undertaking in their community, as it supports the children, offers mentorship, and keeps them off the streets as well as away from violence, drugs and crime that one often encounters in the slums.
I collected gear (kimonos, muay thai and boxing equipment, clothing and very importantly, rash guards (so that the girls of Rio have adequate equipment to participate as well), and then later, money from donations and gear auctions to support some particular difficulties the social project faced due to lack of funding. Here is where the money went:
My friend Nico Ball manages the Terere Kid’s Project at Terere’s academy in Ipanema. She put out a request for donations in order to install new lighting fixtures in the academy. You can’t wrestle in the dark, so this was a no-brainer, and we paid half of the cost.
One of the difficulties faced in the Vieria Brothers social project was a lack of access to water. You need to install a special water fountain that filters the drinking water because it is not clean in Brazil, which is very expensive. Otherwise, the children would literally have to carry their water up the mountain if they even had access to clean water in the first place, and this was not an acceptable situation. We donated half the cost of the water fountain which has just recently been installed in the academy.
An important aspect of this project to me was not only providing the kids with a safe place to do something constructive, but to hopefully provide an opportunity to build a life and travel outside the reaches of the slums. We made a decent donation to Checkmat and Vieira Brothers Social Project athlete Jonatas Gomes, who traveled as a 17 year old to California to participate in the purple belt light featherweight division of the Pan American games. This is the second biggest jiu jitsu tournament in the world. He defeated the division favorite in the very first round and made it all the way to the final, where he finished with a silver medal after (if I remember correctly) six fights. We will be sponsoring Jonatas again for the World Championships in June, as well as the kid’s team as a whole for a large tournament in Rio at the end of the month.
Of course, the primary focus of this project was to provide gear to the children, and this is HALF of what has been sent to Cantagalo. Full of new and used kimonos, boxing gloves, rash guards, clothing and shorts to outfit the athletes in everything from infant to adult sizes. It was really cool to collect all these things from all over the country. We had orders from Jiu Jitsu gear distributors shipped straight to my house, donations mailed in, dropped off at my academy, and a separate drive to support that project run in Baltimore as well. I still have stacks of gis at my home ready to go out, and while tedious to package and transport, this is going to be a tremendous help for the children and athletes of the favela.
Next on the radar: The mats are in disrepair and need to be fixed. We are going to start raising money again soon to donate to new tatami for the Vieria Brothers Social Project to ensure the safety and upkeep of the training environment for the children.
If you are interested in checking out the social project, you can take a look at my friend Antonio’s Instagram, who is a black belt that instructs at the project: antoniocarlosjrg
You can also take a look at this video which gives the history of the project and illustrates the need for it in the Cantagalo community:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/yGmdWZ0BuvY
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