Matthew Pinsent visits Fight for Peace Rio with BBC
Four times Olympic gold medallist rower Matthew Pinsent this week visited Fight for Peace’s Academy in Rio de Janeiro. Pinsent, who now works as a television broadcaster, came with a BBC film crew to shoot a documentary on Brazilian Olympic hopefuls.
Fight for Peace’s Brazilian staff returned from the Christmas break with a training week of reflection, evaluation and planning at the Rio Academy.
Fight for Peace founded in Complexo da Maré, Rio de Janeiro in 2000. Based in a small rented gym, 40 young members of the local community attended boxing training and citizenship classes.
With over ten years stable growth behind it, currently over 1600 children and young people are directly supported every year by Fight for Peace Academies in Rio de Janeiro and London.
Publication of Children of the Drug Trade, 2003, by Luke Dowdney, the first ever ethnographic study of armed child and adolescent workers in Rio de Janeiro’s favela drug factions. The study remains today an influential reference to Brazilian social anthropologists.
Publication of international research Neither War nor Peace, 2005, showing that Fight for Peace’s working methodology, which was developed to overcome division amongst youth and prevent children and young people from working for Rio’s drug factions, is transferable to a wide range of communities.
Fight for Peace completes its purpose built Academy in Complexo da Maré, Rio de Janeiro, in 2005. The Academy has a sports gymnasium with shower and toilet facilities as well as classrooms, an IT room and staff room.
Fight for Peace undergoes successful external evaluation by CLAVES (Latin American Centre for the Study of Violence and Health in 2006 and independent assessment by University of East London in 2009. For more information, click here.
Luke Dowdney, Fight for Peace’s founder, is awarded an MBE in 2005 for “services to the prevention of violence and exploitation of children” and the Laureus Sport for Good Award in 2007 (see photo).
Founded in 2000 with the support of Viva Rio, in 2007 Fight for Peace in Brazil launches as an independent organisation with the establishment of Associação Luta Pela Paz on 27 December 2007.
The Fight for Peace Academy in North Woolwich, London is opened by World Heavyweight Champion Wladimir Klitchsko in November 2007, and Fight for Peace successfully registers as a charity in England and Wales.
HRH Prince Charles and HRH Camilla Parker Bowles, the Duchess of Cornwall, visit the Fight for Peace Academy in Rio de Janeiro in July 2009 to widespread international news coverage.
Roberto Custódio, Fight for Peace’s most successful boxer to date wins the Brazilian National Championships in October 2010. Roberto is part of the Brazilian national boxing team and his career victories also include Golden Gloves Championships in 2007, 2008 and 2009.MILESTONES
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