1. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is preparing to wow the world.

The 2016 Olympics will welcome 15,000

athletes and nearly million tourists from all over the world this summer. It will be the first
South American city ever to host the Olympic Games.
2. Everyone loves this exciting, vibrant and energetic city filled with over 6 million people according
to latest census. It conjures images of white sand, clear water beaches and beautiful women in
bikinis. Theres ftbol everywhere, extravagant parties and millions of people packing the streets
for the world renowned carnaval.
3. Yet even as one of the richest developing countries in the world, of the Rios population, over
a million people live in favelas, high population density substandard slums, where only a lucky,
1% of children will ever attend a public university.
4. With a huge income gap between the rich and the poor and scarce upward mobility, the
childhood experience ranges on a wide spectrum from homeless, malnourished children
begging on the street to groups of teenagers trying on the latest clothes in the glitzy shopping
malls.
5. They love music and reading. Younger children enjoy reading fables, short stories, and romance
books when theyre older. They make up songs, and recite chants in games like Brincadeiras de
Roda. Some schools even offer music classes.
6. Teenagers from the middle to upper class bracket have mobile phones. Youth from the lower
class families may not be as fortunate. The internet is usually only available to the upper class.
88% of them have Facebook installed and they spend an average 3.8 hours a day on social
media.
7. Now unlike internet, children in Rio have the right to a free public education from preschool
through university. By law they are required to attend school 200 days a year, from ages 6-14
for primary and lower secondary education. Secondary school and higher education such as the
public universities area are also free but not mandatory.
8. Many upper class families send their children to private schools for a better overall level of
education and to prepare them for the vestibular, a rigorous college entrance exam, to enter the
free public universities in Brazil.
9. Today, Brazil is facing a huge dilemma with its free public universities: the majority are rich
students who dont have to pay anything because they pass the rigorous entrance exam. Those
less fortunate, who didnt have thousand of dollars worth of tutoring dont pass and end up
paying to get into privatized universities that will give them degrees lower in status than those of
a public university.
10. This problem, along with child labor, extreme poverty, high crime rate and many others threaten
the childhood of the millions of less fortunate children living in Rio de Janeiro. There is a cycle of
poverty and misfortune. So next time, you visit Rio, I hope you know more than just a single
story.
11. APA Source List