As we saw in our first story, life in Rio's de Janeiro's infamous favelas looks like anything but a healthy place to raise a family, let alone get children safely to school. But in one of Rio's toughest slums, SBS reporter and presenter Sarah Abo has found a woman determined to change that. She is a dynamic school principal working miracles with children traumatised by violence and the haven she's created, it is nothing short of inspiring. Here is Sarah.

REPORTER: Sarah Abo

For some of the Rio's residents, life seems simple enough. Money and privilege see to that. Even bad weather doesn't interrupt their daily regime. But for Yvonne Bezerra de Mello, it is far more complicated. She's taking me to one of Rio's biggest favelas, a journey she makes each day.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: We are going to a complex da Mare, which is a huge complex of slums. It is 16 communities, 130,000 people live in this place.

REPORTER: And is it dangerous?

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: It's dangerous because Mare has not been pacified - no, it is dangerous because we have in that place three drug commanders who fight among each other and of course with the police, etcetera. So there is shootings and complications every day.

REPORTER: Every day?

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: Every day, yes.

Yvonne is the founder and principal of Projeto Uere, a school for slum children. It's no ordinary school and in the tough community even the word "normal" has taken on a different meaning.

REPORTER: It sounds so scary, I mean there is kids living in these communities.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: Yes. Kids living in such communities they are used to violence. It means that violence to them is what is normal. They cannot understand that you can live in another part of the town where those things do not happen.

Rio is what Yvonne calls two cities.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: The ghettos and the normal city.

As we drive I begin to see what she means. We started in a well heeled part of town but now that quickly changed. According to Yvonne the ghetto life is deeply damaging for the children.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: It is complicated for the kids because kids that live under stress, they don't learn correctly. It doesn't mean that you cannot correct them, but the short memory is damaged.

Soon we are in the favela. It is crowded and dirty. Yvonne's school is a colourful and welcoming place for over 400 children. It seems we are not the only ones who have just arrived. 3,000 soldiers are in the favela to keep the peace during the World Cup and this patrol is not happy to see us. They did about three or four laps up and down this street before coming in and asking - it is quite an intimidating force. They are standing here with their guns and there is children walking around. We have to go visit their new army chief and we need to explain to him what we are doing here. We are just hoping for the best. We weren't able to film the meeting with their commander, but he hasn't stopped us filming in the school.

REPORTER: So are we are going now to the violin class?

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: Yes. OK. Good.

REPORTER: Why are the kids learning the violin?

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: Because I think violin is an instrument which is very helpful to improve cognition. They have to have a lot of concentration, they have to have the skills with their hands which many don't - and it is difficult. It is a challenge. They are going to perform at the end of the year with a very well known French violinist, who come to give a concert in Rio in a big theartre and he is going to open and they are going to play with him.

REPORTER: Wow!

The students have only been learning violin for eight months.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: So how quickly it goes!

REPORTER: Yeah. They must be excited.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: Amazing, it's amazing how quickly;. I could not imagine that this happened so quickly they could study violin, you know.

REPORTER: Yeah.

The children are encouraged to stretch, both physically and mentally. Yvonne says the traumatic environment of the favela has affected the kids' capacity to retain information.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: They cannot memorise.

Early in the day Yvonne isn't interested in traditional chalk and talk. She uses these exercises to warm the brain, as she describes it.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: Everything is learnt already, if they don't know that already, they are going to write - they are not going to have the speed. What I want here is the brain speed.

To counter a short attention span, she's divided each class into a series of moments, of 10 or 15 minutes.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: The concept started many years ago in the seventies when I was studying cognition problems in children in countries at war.

It is about verbal communication and memory building.

REPORTER: This is unblocking of the child's mind.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: Yes. Exactly.

Success for Yvonne is measured in many ways. Her older student also have a chance of finding work where before they had almost none and she's proud of what's been achieved with this little boy diagnosed with autism.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: That was impossible six months ago, the psychologist called me and said what did you do with him? I said, you know, love!

And coming to school this morning is another one of Yvonne's success stories. Maria Isabel Santos da Silva's young boy, also has a mental disability, something that other schools simply couldn't deal with.

MARIA ISOBEL SANTOS DA SILVA (Translation): They could not help him there, he began to go backwards, not recognising me as his mother. This was his mental state. I am happy because here he has support, the other school could not give it to him.

REPORTER: What do you think of Yvonne and what she is doing?

MARIA ISOBEL SANTOS DA SILVA (Translation): Look, sincerely, I think she is an angel. After God, she did everything for my son. Look at him, he learned to read and write.

Back in the school, it is a life of activity. There is more stretching, singing and something that's uniquely Brazilian. The kids are about to start a Capoeira class, which is Brazilian martial art with African influence and they take on a dance form. We are going to take a look. The moves are complex and the kids are into it. It is hard to know what they would do without this school.

TEACHER (Translation): Right now, not left, right now. Go. Wait, I'll help you.

GIRL (Translation): I know.

TEACHER (Translation): Do you, okay. Let's go.

Downstairs there is also plenty of enthusiasm.

REPORTER (Translation): Alejandra, is it yummy?

Just like the rest of the kids here she is digging into her delicious lunch, of rice beans meat and vegetables. The children can concentrate better on a full stomach. Working in the kitchen is Gigi. Two generations her children have been educated by Yvonne. After she finishes her shift she has kindly invited me to her home.

REPORTER: Did you live just nearby to Yvonne's school? Just up here so we are going to have a look inside.

It is a small very neat place full of children. They are polite and the young ones are hard at work. For 30 years Gigi lived on the streets until she was rescued by Yvonne.

GIGI (Translation): In Brazil, poor people can't get anything.

Since then, she's called this favela home. She's been fortunate to spend two decades working with Yvonne after starting her education with her.

GIGI (Translation): She organised training courses for my children, she found training and jobs for them in hotels, she helped us a lot with the city council, for them to give us this house. She really helped us a lot.

Gigi's grandchildren have a stable home environment, but they are still exposed to favela violence. I was shocked as one told me about the murder of his four-year-old friend, a senseless killing that occurred when the little boy became excited over chocolate.

BOY (Translation): The little boy was very happy with his Easter egg, his cousin was playing and got angry, then he killed the boy and put him into; first he put him into the wardrobe and his sister and everybody else were looking for him. Later he put the body in the washing machine upside down. His sister looked in the washing machine and found his body there.

Back at school, Yvonne is dealing with the fallout from yet more violence.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO (Translation): Where is the shooting?

Many students haven't made it to school today and now she's finding out why.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO (Translation): Keep me posted later on what really happened, okay, thank you, goodbye.

REPORTER: What was that about?

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: Because there was a shooting 200 metres from here. Now, I do training twice a year. There are a lot of shootings or even grenades. The best set is to go to the floor. .

Yvonne's been working with Rio street kids since the 1980s and is no stranger to violence. In 1993 she was first on the scene following an infamous mass killing known as the Candelaria massacre.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: One day came a police car at night and killed eight. They were supposed to kill one. But, you know, the kids started to run and shout, etcetera so they killed eight kids and I was the first to be there.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO (Translation): Why don't you live with your mum?

CHILD (Translation): Because; when I go home she sends me away.

The mass consider shocked Brazil and the world and Yvonne knew she had to get the kids off the streets.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: After one month I decide to go under the viaduct and build the first class room..

Two decades after the viaduct classroom, her privately funded favela school is internationally acclaimed and Yvonne continues her relentless campaign for children's rights. She says a staggering 6,000 children meet a violent death in Brazil each year. In 2012 her anger was funnelled into this impassioned YouTube plea.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO, UTUBE: So I want you to know that Brazil does not respect the rights of children and that we have to stop this quite - genocide, because those children were murdered by all the military police, or by street bullets in the slums or by fights among drug gangs in the slums or in the city. We cannot accept any more in a country that is safe - so, I ask you to have pressure on Brazilian government to have public policies to help those children to be someone in life and to stop the killing. We are not at war!

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: The propaganda that Brazil is such a paradise makes me - you know, makes me sick. OK. We have improvements, a lot of things has happened that are good, but we cannot hide - the worst side of the country. You have to be an activist because this has to improve. It cannot go on. You can't kill people like that in 2014 in a democratic country.

Her support for the favela children comes at a price. She recently intervened to help a boy who'd been beaten, had his ear sliced off and was pinned to a lamp post with a bike lock. He had to be cut free. These photos produced a reaction that shocked her.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: That was hell, I started to get threats, telephone calls, email, all kinds of things. Many times I went in the streets and people did that - spat on me and say that I should be in his place, because I'm educating bandits in the favelas. So I have to have police protection for some days and I decide to leave the country for 10 days so they leave me alone. It is scary. I was scared.

Yvonne says that crime is now spilling out of the favelas and into suburban neighbourhoods. People are becoming fed up.

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: It is a mess. The violence is in - in a rate that is in Brazil - a mess for the society.

Despite the increasing backlash, she is not prepared to stop her work.

REPORTER: What motivates you to campaign for the children? What is like when you see a child?

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: Because I don't like injustice, I don't like cruelty.

Whether it is street kids or her school kids, Yvonne and her dedicated staff are determined to make a difference.

REPORTER: Do you feel loved by your children?

YVONNE BEZERRA DE MELLO: Sure! Of course I do. I fell loved. If you give love you receive love.

ANJALI RAO: Sarah tells us that Yvonne's reputation is such that about half of her students have international sponsors who fund their education. You can go online to read the blog about her time filming that story. Plus there is a photo gallery of that ground breaking school set up by Yvonne's project. All that on SBS's website.

Reporter
SARAH ABO

Camera
BEN PATRICK

Producer
GEOFF PARISH

Fixers
TANYA WEINGARTH 
PAM HUGHES

Translations/Subtitling
BEATRIZ WAGNER

Editors
MICAH MCGOWN
SIMON PHEGAN

Stills courtesy of Yvonne Bezerra de Mello

1st July 2014