Rio2016 : One year later

On October 2nd of 2009, it was announced that Rio de Janeiro would be the host city for the 2016 Olympic Games. Two years prior to this, Rio de Janeiro was elected to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The city was set to celebrate the two most important global sporting events in a two-year span.

​

Brazil, as part of the BRICS - an association of five major emerging national economies (Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa)- was considered the most stable country in South America. However, as the FIFA World Cup and Olympic Games approached, the country spiralled into one of the major political and economic crisis of its history.

​

One year after the Olympic Games, four students from The New School with diverse backgrounds came to Rio the Janeiro to spend two months researching the outcomes of these mega-events and the impacts on the city. With each student having different academic interests, the project had a multi-disciplinary approach.

​

After living in Rio for a couple of weeks, we realized that the 8 topics of our research - displacement, re-development, tourism, transportation, security, environment, legacy and sport, can not be considered detached between each other.

​

We aimed to create a website with a human rights approach and accessible to everyone interested in the topic. The mega-events are more than sport and competition. Beyond that, there is a city, there is its people,  its culture and history.