Be it between the rich and poor, the city and slums, the learned and illiterate or wealthy entrepreneurs and street urchins, Brazil remains to be a nation of startling and distorted contrasts. Despite it slowly erasing its “developing world” status that has been beset by historical and contemporary obstacles, Brazil is only now finding its feet and emerging as potential new-age economic power.

Yet although sustainable economic growth and urbanisation has clearly started to take place, the nations cities continue to coexist with a large, populous and poorer country sides. This has resulted in an intricate social structure within the nation, with the upper-class elite purely dividing amongst themselves and large-scale peasantry and working class consisting of those who seek out meager living within Favelas.

Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro is Brazil’s largest favela and other than the horrific quantity of drug trafficking that haunts this working-class district, another challenging issue it faces is its inability to provide appropriate education for its youth. Although there are some well developed, public school systems being offered, it is common to find that a number of children dropping out after 5 or 6 years, due to the pressures associated with living in an undeveloped, highly class-differentiated society. This young boy here is one of them.