Real Life Virtual World in Brazil's Slums

Nancy King and Crystal English are blogging from Brazil, and recently wrote about a giant virtual world Brazilian teenagers have built in the hillside of a Rio favela. Each kid has an "avatar" made of lego or wood, and moves it around the recreation of their favela – also built of lego, old bricks, milk containers, and other detritus. The project is so big that the kids even have funding through an NGO called Projeto Morrinho. King and English write:

Even more interesting than the architecture of the project is it’s function. As you can see in the photos, within the city are real places – hospitals, bars, cars, roads etc. And populating the city are people made from Legos, tape and string. Each of these characters represents a different child who is participating in a game. The more Legos possessed by a character, the older and more established the player. Functioning like an offline videogame, the kids are ARMED and fight with one another, moving around the favela in precise, calculated moves. They have even built an area just outside the favela for the cops who have, among other supplies, a helicopter and cache of grenades. Most of the cops, incidentally, look like they are dead.

Projeto Morrinho [via Viva Las Aguas] Thanks, Josh!