ABSTRACT
The problems of survival for the Brazilian poor in large urban centers assumed enor-mous proportions in the 1980s. The desperate conditions of deprived children and youth in Brazil, a country of great disparities, dualities, and inequalities in terms of human development, is exemplified by the city of Rio de Janeiro. Between 1970 and 1991, the population of Rio de Janeiro grew by 67 percent, from 3,281,908 to 5,980,768 inhabitants. This led to major social and economic problems. Of the 1,625,360 households in Rio de Janeiro, 239,680 (12.4 percent) were situated in shantytowns ( favelas), housing 962,790 people. In addition, there are 177,675 (18.8 percent) living in housing projects consisting of modest houses or small apartments built to house people who had been evicted from shantytowns (Empress Municipal de Informática e Planejamento [IPLAN-RIO] 1992/93).
