© The Surfers / WPS Pocket-cam
Between heats at the Billabong Pro, Americanos -- Austin Ware, Pat Gudang, Lakey Peterson, plus Damien and CJ Hobgood -- got together to throw on a surf lesson for the Rio grommets.
It went down at Sao Conrado, the next beach past their hotel, where all the crew had been free-surfing most days. The hills behind Sao Conrado are home to the Rocinha favela and the special morning was put together by Ricardo "Bocao" Ramos and his team at Rocinha Surf School.
As it was a Sunday, the kids had been pacing the beach since dawn, frothing for the lesson, including one little termite who went so berserk in the shorey that he ended up breaking his board.
The surf school has been doing incredible stuff for the kids of Rochina since 1994, and according to local grom, Gabriel: "It's really cool, because sometimes here in Rocinha we don't have many opportunities, but now we have surfing and it's such a cool sport that people want to participate in."
"It's more than a surf school," say Bocao. "It's a school of life."
A similar sentiment to Jean Carlos, who set up the Surf Gloria project over at the Cantagalo favela, where the goal is, "To give the kids something to do when they're not at school! To keep them active -- because nowadays they are being influenced by a lot of bad things out there ... I prefer seeing a child with a surfboard rather than seeing them out there with a gun."