A socialite's crusade

Yvonne Bezerra de Mello, who views education as an equalizer, operates a school in a slum

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Like her neighbors in Rio's elegant Flamengo district, Yvonne Bezerra de Mello enjoys the trappings of wealth, from riding show horses to escaping on weekends to a mountain estate north of the city.

But during the week, the socialite with the perfectly coiffed hair runs a small school in one of Rio's sprawling, violent favelas, or slums -- the latest initiative in 30 years of activism that has won Bezerra de Mello worldwide acclaim.

The jolting contrast in her life parallels the disparity between rich and poor across the country. Bezerra de Mello, 62, attends dinner parties with Brazilian power brokers. She's also a mother hen to urchins shunned by much of Brazilian society.

Bezerra de Mello says that some in her social circle clearly don't approve.

"Many people say to me: 'You are crazy. You cannot raise favela kids.' And I say, 'Come and see, just see for yourself, that it's possible to do that,' " she said as she told her story -- in English, with an accent traceable to years spent studying languages in Sweden and Italy and sculpting in Paris. Now, she's married to a Rio hotel magnate.

She found her cause at 13, when she started reading to blind children. Bezerra de Mello says her mother not only raised her children by herself, on a civil servant's salary, after her husband left her, but she also helped orphans.

One objective of Bezerra de Mello's crusade is to change the perception of street children as pivetes, or boy thieves. "I want to change that part, that favela kids are bandits," she said. "But it's not an easy task."

Some Brazilians would rather not dwell on such things, now that their country of 190 million is in the midst of an impressive economic expansion that helped Rio win the 2016 Olympics. Under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former shoeshine boy, Brazil is riding a wave of optimism.

The tangible byproduct is that poverty is diminishing. But Bezerra de Mello sees little reason to celebrate. She says favela children still have limited options, with crack cocaine use spreading and the public schools a disaster.

Rio also remains one of the world's most violent cities, a fact brought home last month when drug traffickers shot down a police helicopter. "For many people," Bezerra de Mello said, "their lives aren't any better."

Her supporters say she has won the right to speak out after building the slum school, called Project Uere, from scratch. Project Uere -- the word means "Children of the Golden Rainbow" -- has been operating since policemen killed eight Rio street children outside a church in 1993.

Bezerra de Mello started her school with the 62 survivors of the massacre, at first under a downtown viaduct. The walls were plywood; the bridge formed the ceiling. Some city officials dismissed her efforts as showboating.