This picture shows José, a 69-year-old Brazilian man with no income, who lives in a house with no bathroom. Millions of people in Brazil live in extreme poverty, unable to buy the minimum amount of food. In Rio de Janeiro, host state of 2016 Olympic Games, 5.5 per cent of the population lives with hunger and unemployment. Corruption in Brazil directly affects the well-being of citizens and decreases public investment in health, education and infrastructure, increasing social exclusion and economic inequality. (2015)
“In Brazil, we suffer from inequality not only of income, but also of education, opportunities and gender. Even though it is a country considerably rich in resources and with a high GDP, Brazil is extremely unfair considering the distribution of its resources among the population. And the most obvious cause of this is decades of corrupt governments and impunity. A photograph can do little to change this reality, but a picture can disturb, cause discomfort and indeed change a thought and help in the fight for a more just society.”

Márcia Foletto, 47, graduated in journalism and has been working as photojournalist since 1988. Born in Santa Maria, Southern Brazil, she began working in a small newspaper and fell in love with journalism. Since 1991, Márcia is a staff photographer of O Globo, onde of the largest newspaper in Brazil, based in Rio de Janeiro. Nowadays, her focus areas are social inequality and environmental degradation. She has won a number of national awards, such as Finep and CNT Photojournalism.