When I reached the Chapeu Mangueira favela in Leme, a slum that borders on Copacabana, I was
ange came for him one day when, after being arrested for dealing, he was convinced by a jiu-jitsu trainer to take lessons. In a short time he became an expert, and went on to excel at boxing and then MMA
Nativo has fought and won all of his first four bouts.
Klong Toei is home to one of the largest urban slums in the world. Residents live in a cluster of corrugated iron shacks, along active railways, wedged between shipping yards and over-passing expressways
Beneath one of those expressways sits 96 Penang, a local Muay Thai gym with a proven reputation for producing champion fighters.
the dedicated people who run the gym, offering the kids of Klong Toei a place to find confidence, self-respect, love and a sense of meaning in a world where drugs, violence, prostitution and death are a fact of life