Miratus
The social badminton Miratus project was created in 1998 in order to fight the lack of opportunities and idleness of young people in the Chacrinha favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Miratus guides the youth to choose another way of life, rather than pursuing crime and drugs to gain status and identity.
Sebastião, the founder of Miratus, is a true hero who built his life from humble beginnings and had a passion for helping the youth of his community.
Over the past 17 years, he and his good friend Ramos built an enormous and impressive badminton facility day by day, brick by brick. He created his own system to teach the kids championship badminton: using the steps of Samba dance to learn the footwork and increase their fitness level.
Many of the youth are now competing and winning national and international tournaments! Miratus has successfully trained hundreds of young people in a new sport through local innovative ideas and methods.
You can learn more about Miratus by visiting their website: http://www.miratus.org/
OUR TEAMWORK
Rise Up & Care is the proud sidekick to Miratus, supporting them to do what they do best! Need a sentence about what RUC did. A recent national tournament shows the fruit of their labor of love: the 28 participants from Miratus, with travel support from Rise Up & Care, dominated the national tournament in Caxias do Sul, winng 12 gold medals, 9 silvers, and 9 bronze. Rise Up is overjoyed with this partnership with Miratus and all of its participants!
We were able to take dozens of young people to tournaments thanks to Rise Up & Care. One player went unranked to a tournament in Peru and won the tournament, securing a monthly stipend from the World Badminton Federation and winning a spot at the youth badminton world championships in Bilbao, Spain! Imagine how that changes his life! No single experience transforms a youngster from the favela as much as traveling and competing at a distant tournament.
Sebastião Oliveira
OUR FILM
Rise Up & Care is thrilled to share our documentary film starring Miratus. It was is directed by Katia Lund, the co-director of City of God. Watch the trailer below and find out more about the film HERE.
