FAVELA CLT HUB

The Favela Community Land Trust (CLT) is an innovative, community-led model that guarantees permanent housing security for favela residents while preserving the affordability, culture and self-built heritage of their neighborhoods. By placing land under collective ownership, residents gain secure tenure and protection from displacement and speculation.

SUSTAINABLE FAVELA NETWORK

The Sustainable Favela Network (SFN) brings together community leaders, technical experts and organizations to celebrate, strengthen and expand the community-led sustainability and environmental justice initiatives already flourishing in Rio's favelas.

Mapping & Visibility

Identifying and showcasing grassroots sustainability projects across Rio's favelas.

Network Building

Connecting community organizers with each other and with allies to exchange knowledge.

Pilot Projects

Supporting community-led solar energy, sanitation and green infrastructure solutions.

Favela Community Land Trust

LEGAL EMPOWERMENT

The Favela Community Land Trust (CLT) Project supports favela residents in securing collective land tenure, combining the legal protection of formal ownership with the community's right to remain. Through a CLT, land is held in trust by a resident-led nonprofit while families own their homes, keeping housing permanently affordable and guarding against speculation and removal.

Socially, the model strengthens community organization, democratic governance and collective decision-making. Legally, it builds on Brazilian law and Rio's Master Plan to recognize the trust as an instrument of land regularization, offering residents tools, workshops and technical support to defend their territory on their own terms.

Community Initiatives

Favela residents are leading the way on solutions for housing, the environment and social change. Explore some of the community-led efforts transforming their neighborhoods.

Environmental Justice

Residents create green spaces, sustainable infrastructure and climate resilience projects rooted in local knowledge.

Housing Rights

Community organizers defend residents against eviction and advocate for secure, dignified housing.

Community Voices

Local journalists and storytellers share favela perspectives with the world, challenging stigma.

Advocacy & Resources

Tools and pathways for favela residents and allies to defend housing rights and advance environmental justice.

Housing rights & anti-eviction support
Environmental justice & climate resilience
Community-led data and mapping
Ways for allies to get involved

01 / CLIMATE & ECOLOGY

Sustainable Favela Network

Connecting community-led initiatives across Rio de Janeiro to catalyze ecological sanitation, renewable energy installations, community gardens, and local climate resilience hubs led primarily by grassroots women organizers.

190+ Community Projects • 120 Favelas

Strategic Framework

Our Community-Controlled Methodology

Anchoring sustainable local solutions, collective land stewardship, and narrative power in favela communities.

CatComm seeks a systemic, structural transformation in how Rio de Janeiro—and cities everywhere—perceive and integrate their homegrown settlements. From newer communities in urgent need of dignified alternatives, to established ones longing for full rights and quality infrastructure, we work alongside grassroots organizers who dedicate themselves—day and night, year after year—to these goals. We applaud and join forces with the "by us for us” ethos of the favelas, and work to build a society as a whole that learns from them!

02 / LAND SECURITY

Community Land Trusts

Pioneering the Favela Community Land Trust (F-CLT) model in Brazil to safeguard residents against displacement, secure collective land titles, preserve affordable housing, and build intergenerational security for working-class families.

Permanent Tenure Security • Collective Ownership

03 / NARRATIVE JUSTICE

RioOnWatch & Media

Bilingual community journalism and narrative advocacy amplifying hyper-local reporting, dismantling stigmatizing media tropes, documenting urban policy impacts, and broadcasting grassroots victories to global audiences.

Bilingual Journalism • 3,000+ Investigations

JOIN THE MOVEMENT

MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION

Unite with favela organizers, community leaders, and solidarity allies across Rio de Janeiro to advance community land trusts and sustainable grassroots initiatives.