Ralph Little's Brazil charity trip

Royle Family and Married Single Other star Ralf Little has returned from a trip to Brazil on behalf of Action Aid
Actor Ralf Little has just returned from visiting an ActionAid project in Rio de Janeiro's notorious City of God, where he is an ambassador for the charity, which is using football to try and bring children out of their poverty stricken lives to show them new opportunities, particularly as Brazil is set to host the World Cup in 2014.
In Brazil, Ralf visited its world-famous slums and shantytowns - known as favelas - to meet the children who need help.

The most notorious of the slums is the Cidade de Deus (City of God), Brazil's poorest and most notorious shantytown, where ActionAid has one of its key projects.

The slum is now home to 65,000 people although it was planned for just 25,000. And, in this slum alone, 10% of children are in a state of malnutrition. It's a jarring contrast to the glamour of Copacabana Beach.
Brazil's slums
Children make up 40 per cent of the population of the slum, and it's estimated that up to 20 per cent of those children will not make it into their teens due to gangs, gun crime, drugs and poverty.

The actor was quickly followed around by the women and children who call it home - meeting families who live five to a room beside huge piles of rotting rubbish washed down the hillside by the frequent rains.

The project Ralf visited is called the Centre for Education and Cultural Actions (CEACC), an ActionAid-supported after school club that gives children in the area a safe place to play, and a chance of learning new skills like computing, football and capoeira and a refuge.

The centre supports hundreds of children with activities and further education to help prevent them from falling into a life of drugs and crime.
Knowing that this year's World Cup legacy is to provide education for all, and that World Cup 2014 will be taking place in Rio de Janeiro, ActionAid has found a great opportunity to make a connection between this event and education through sport, which can raise public awareness in tackling poverty.