Offspring

The state of Ceará, in Brazil has around 100,000 people addicted to crack. I am from Ceará, and in the beginning of this year I went to Oitão Preto, a favela (a poor neighborhood) famous for drug dealing, violence, and injustice. The name Oitão Preto means a black .38 calibre pistol, which further represents the violence of the favela. All of the parents of the children that are photographed are involved in some way with the trafficking of drugs, including being dealers and users. For most of these children, the drug trade is a way of life passed down from generation to generation with very few ways to escape. These children do not have access to the basic needs of life, such as food, water, clean clothes, education, and a comfortable place to sleep. The children don’t receive aid from the government, because the social workers in Fortaleza are too scared to go to their neighborhood. The only escape that these children have is a group of volunteers from Iris Global that come to the favela to help them to receive access to basic needs and show them a way of life different from the drug dealing and violence. Through this group of volunteers I was able to walk safely through Oitão Preto and document these children.