The story of the start of Voz das Comunidades, a community newspaper covering the majority-Black working-class neighborhoods that surround Rio de Janeiro, reads like the plot of a children’s movie.
In 2005, 11-year-old Rene Silva persuaded teachers at his school in the Complexo de Alemão district to let him join the student newspaper—despite protests from older kids who thought he was too young. Within months he outgrew that gig, recruiting four other children to help him launch his own newspaper covering the entire favela, as Brazil’s informal neighborhoods are known.
“I used to look through papers and I didn’t see the favela I knew represented,” he says. “The media only ever talked about drug trafficking, violence, death—so people from outside thought that’s all there is here.”
Eighteen years later, Voz das Comunidades continues to chip away at those stereotypes. Now formally recognized as an NGO, it has 35 staff members who cover stories on culture, politics, sports, education, and problems of state neglect.
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