Desk Report
Publish: 10 Oct 2021, 02:27 pm
Boxing Offers Escape Valve for Favela Children in Brazil || Photo: Collected
When 13-year-old Mariangela Pereira da Silva was accosted by
a strange man near her home earlier this year she was frightened.
She felt she had to do something and a bar of chocolate
helped her reach a decision. A local NGO was offering chocolate to anyone who
wanted to try out boxing and Da Silva went along.
She loved it. She gained a new passion and a new moniker. If
she ever makes it in the ring her friends joke her nickname will be “Twix”.
Da Silva is part of a fledgling boxing program in Capao
Redondo, a favela on Sao Paulo’s gritty south side.
The project has been helped by a surge of interest in the
sport after the summer Olympics, where Brazil won three boxing medals, their biggest
haul at a single Game.
“I imagine having a gold medal around my neck in that
gigantic ring and my mum being proud of me and me being happy at winning,” Da
Silva said of her boxing dreams.
The program is run by an NGO called NAVE. NAVE was formed
in 2014 to provide educational and cultural programs, but indoor activities
were halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The sport continued outdoors and NAVE added boxing to its roster
of activities in June this year, believing it teaches children how to channel
their aggression.
“Letting them punch in a controlled environment like boxing
is an escape valve for them,” Bruno Hereira dos Santos, NAVE’s founder and
president, told Reuters. “They don’t have a lot of options so even the girls
enjoy it."
Da Silva is the first to don gloves when the sparring begins alongside a dirt football pitch near the summit of the hillside community.
The young boxers train on mats laid between the wooden stakes
that mark the ring posts. Rubble and rubbish lie in piles nearby.
Da Silva showed promise and was fast-tracked to Sao Paulo’s
Olympic Training and Research Centre.
Under the tutelage of coach Guilherme Miranda, she is
learning fast and Miranda believes that even though she has yet to face an
opponent she has the potential to go far.
“She’s a rough diamond,” he said.
Miranda and Dos Santos understand that champions are few and
far between and stress the project’s main aims are to ensure the kids stay in
school, keep them active, and teach them discipline.
The message has resonated with the disadvantaged children and
Da Silva has become a trailblazer who revels in explaining the finer – and not
so fine - points of boxing.
"I pulled a big tyre today,” she tells wide-eyed friends
after one training session.
“It was a really big one, from a truck, I think. I ran up and down the stairs 10 times. And you know those big oval tracks you see on the Olympics? I ran round that.” (Reuters)
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