This Brazilian Favela Chose Street Art Over Violence 🎨🇧🇷 #worldcup2026 #favelas #brasil #rio

World Cup celebrations are already underway in Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro’s largest favela, on Tuesday, as local artists and residents painted an important commercial street. The initiative aims to bring back a long-time tradition of painting streets with Brazil's flag colors —yellow, blue and green — as well as football player cartoons and World Cup-related elements. Three artists, two of them born and raised in Rocinha, designed the artwork that now covers the busy Via Ápia, a street at the favela's entrance that is always crowded with people. “This art is the result of many hands together, you can see at the beginning the image representing houses and hands celebrating this unity. Our idea is to show the world that favelas in Rio de Janeiro are not just violence. We breath art and culture, and we want to show the world our strength," said local artist Maria Luiza de Lima, known by her artistic name Malu Vibe. In Rio, painting streets ahead of the World Cup is a long-standing tradition, with residents decorating entire blocks in Brazil’s green and yellow and turning them into communal spaces to watch matches. In recent tournaments, however, the practice has declined, with fewer streets taking part.