 Photo by Douglas Engle, www.douglasengle.com
Temple grad Elisa Ranck installs plants in a hydroponic grower near the Christ the Redeemer statue in the Santa Marta slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in August.
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Josh Meyer is used to people saying no.
When he first traveled to Rio de Janeiro’s
shantytowns and envisioned hydroponic rooftop gardens as a fix for Brazilian malnutrition, many people rejected his ideas as too costly and his designs as too unwieldy.
Still others told him that his quixotic plans would never fly in the favelas, slums overrun with drug trafficking gangs and corrupt cops.
Meyer even faced self-doubt about how much hope he, an outsider, could bring to the grim realities of Dona Marta, Rio’s most-known — and most-guarded — favela.
Upon returning to Temple in August 2004 with his plans for Rio, however, Meyer started to hear lots of yeses. [more]
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