Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – In the district of Praça Onze, around the corner from Rua Marquês de Sapucaí where the world-famous Rio Carnaval makes its annual procession, the presence of Crescer e Viver, or “Living and Growing,” is unmistakable with its prominent blue-and-white striped circus tent. The tent is fenced off in an almost sanctifying gesture from its surroundings of a junkyard, an empty tarmac lot dotted with a few cars, and backed by a panorama-spanning view of one of many favelas (shanty towns) of Rio de Janeiro.

Across from the lot, the newly built Praça Onze metro station stands in stark contrast to the old, crackling buildings—a sign of progress in this decaying part of Rio de Janeiro. The facing walls of the cozy and quaint staff offices at Crescer e Viver are one continuous mural, colorful and bright, depicting cartoon characters, clowns, and smiling children. Painted in bold, block letters are the Portuguese words: “ART & CULTURE! Promoting citizenship.”

Under the tent, children are gathered in various groups, each led by an instructor. Some of these instructors were once students themselves. A group of about a dozen bright-eyed youths are being taught tissu, a form of aerial ballet using silk ribbons. Some appear nervous, others eager, as they watch a peer climb and descend in daring twists and turns. The younger ones, about six or seven-years-old, are gathered in a circle doing stretches and push-ups. The more advanced and experienced teens learn the staples of circus acrobatics: back flips, front flips, somersaults, and tumbling. They’re training for a live performance they will give at the end of the year. The reverberating laughter and chatter of children at play mixed with the rhythmic stamping of feet upon the cushioned mats is constant under the 40-meter high tent.

The children and youth mostly come from the surrounding favelas of Coroa, São Carlos, Estácio, Querosene, and Zinco, places where laughter is sometimes drowned out by the ominous sound of gun battles. It is the all-too-familiar sound of turf wars fought between rival drug lords or shootouts with the police or special military units. This drug war has been a fact of life for favela dwellers ever since the Colombian cocaine trade expanded into Brazil in the early 1970′s.

Ironically, many of the soldiers who fight this brutal war are the children of these communities. These “lost children,” writes scholar of Brazilian studies, Joseph Page, in his book, The Brazilians, are “part of an ever-expanding pool of people without hope, a dehumanized subspecies that poses a threat to social stability.” He says they are the byproduct of the savage capitalism that fed the Brazilian economy in the late 60′s , early 70′s, and took an especially harsh toll on the children of the families forgotten in the country’s rush to development.

That generation of children was raised only knowing poverty, crime, and violence. With the military dictatorship at the time turning a blind eye to the problem, it became a vicious cycle that has continued on to the current generation of children. Many have ended up as part of the growing population of “street children,” estimated by UNICEF to be at around 12 million in the entire country.

If these children aren’t making their living on the streets selling their bodies, candy, or stealing, they are caught up in the drug trade or are at risk of becoming involved in gangs actively trying to recruit them. Jens Glüsing, a Brazil-based correspondent for Spiegel International, says gangs target children 16 and under specifically because they can not, under current law, be given an adult prison sentence. This means if they are arrested, they would only be in prison for a few months, and in most cases, would return to the gang shortly after release.

It is these at-risk youths and adolescents that Vinicius Daumas and Junior Perim founded Crescer e Viver for. The organization was born out of the Porto da Pedra (Port of the Rock) Samba School in the neighborhood in São Gonçalo. In 2001, their chosen theme ‘crescer e viver agora é lei’ or ‘growing up and living is law now’ paid homage to the Statute of The Child and Adolescent.

Passed in 1990 by the Brazilian National Congress, the landmark legislation guaranteed children and adolescents the right to protection of life and health through the implementation of public social policies. After carnaval, several members proposed transforming the theme into a social program and 3 years in, it had become an institution with about 200 members, a number that has grown beyond expectations.

“Nowadays we are independent and recognize our history and birth in the samba school, but we are not attached to that anymore. The samba school plays carnaval, which is its real purpose. The social program, Crescer e Viver, became an organization and has its own life. The son was born, grew up and walks with its own legs” says Daumas.

The two recognized early on that, despite the passing of the statute, underprivileged children and adolescents were still falling through the cracks of society and into all the wrong places. No samba school, including Porto da Pedra, is equipped to tackle the problem as their limited resources are put into the competitions.

Since the 1990 statute was passed, there has been a slow, but steady shift in societal attitude from exclusion and blame of the street child to incorporation and acceptance of collective responsibility for the welfare of the child, a move that Daniel Hoffman of the North American Congress on Latin America wrote back in a 1994 report was “a greater challenge than writing new laws.” Crescer e Viver and the thousands of  similar non-government organizations that have sprung up since the last decade to meet this challenge, are today’s testament to that change.

However, on the part of government, little has changed. Hoffman, in the same report notes, “The obstacles to implementation of the Child Statute are considerable, including lack of basic resources and infrastructure, resistance from local and state-level politicians, and non-compliance within the judiciary (which loses much of its power under the new laws).”

To Daumas and Perim, tangible and permanent social change comes in the form of grassroots, community-based movements dedicated to the empowerment of young people. “It’s what we call socio-productive inclusion of these young people” says Daniela Ramiris, former Assessor of Institutional Development at Crescer e Viver. She says using the concept of a ‘social circle’ as a vehicle, the organization instills in these young people the will to transform society and the conditions they live in, and educates them on their rights as citizens. Their ultimate goal is to give them the practical skills, knowledge, and confidence to pave their own path in life.

In the United States, this is the expected role of teachers and mentors, but in Rio, the public education system is in a constant crisis. Teachers are underpaid and lack basic teaching supplies, many facilities are in disrepair, and misplaced priorities at the local and state level leave things like after-school programs and computer labs something to wish for. Since the early ’80s, the nonprofit sector, which includes social, art, and education programs like Crescer e Viver, have been making up for the shortcomings of Rio’s public sector, especially in those areas. Not many complain though. Self-reliance is as Brazilian as samba.