ABOUT US

Associação Cultural e Recreativa Afoxé Raízes Africanas, founded on December 8, 2002, is a non-profit institution whose aim is to promote, rescue, preserve, and disseminate Afro-Brazilian Culture and Popular Culture.

Founded in the schoolyard of the Império Serrano Samba School by sixteen daughters of Oxum, it is currently based at Ilê Õmim Lorê in the city of Belford-Roxo. Its founder and current president is Maria Isabel Vitorino, known as Mãe Isabel de Oyá.

By enabling and creating a space for knowledge exchange while aiming to strengthen the history of Afro-Brazilian Tradition, the Afoxé is committed to

empowering children, young people, adults, and senior citizens through percussion, Afro dance and traditional dance workshops, sewing, fabric dyeing, African cuisine, and conversation sessions.

Afoxé Raízes Africanas is the first Afoxé group and "Ponto de Cultura" (project financed and supported institutionally by the Brazilian Ministry of Culture) in the city of Belford-Roxo. Accordingly, it has performed inside and outside the municipality, in an attempt to preserve the original traditions of Mother Africa. To this end, it holds three Carnival parades each year, two of them in downtown Rio de Janeiro and the other in Belford-Roxo (RJ).