SPORTS:Visa waiver for visitors during Rio 2016 Olympics

Brazil is expecting a tourism boost from next year's Olympic Games. But there is a barrier: visas. The good news is Brazil's Congress has just approved a waiver system that will benefit visitors from a number of countries, including China.

Brazil is a well-known tourist destination, but Latin America's biggest country doesn't receive many visitors: less than ten percent if compared to the United States.

Charisse Afrane, a New Yorker, is visiting Rio for the first time. She tried a Carnival costume during a tour to Rio's Samba stadium and is having the time of her life, but says it was not cheap or easy to come to Brazil:

"It cost 160 dollars to get the visa and it took about five weeks to complete the process, so you have to start in advance in order to have all the documents you need to travel," said a tourist named Charisse Afrane.

But many tourists will likely not need a visa as Brazil's lower house voted to grant a 90-day waiver to foreigners that need one during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

The waiver aims to boot tourism during the games and it will not be subject to visitors having tickets, halting temporally a reciprocity visa policy from several countries like the Unites States, Canada and China.

Kevin Tang, director of the Brazil-China Chamber of Commerce, says it is a positive move, considering China's outbound tourists totaled more than 100 million last year.

"China is Brazil's largest trade partner but last year there were only around 60 thousand tourists in Brazil. That is less than half percent of all Chinese tourists around the world," Tang said.

Tour operators agree visas are a major problem for the tourism industry:

"If the waiver is not extended after the Rio Olympics, it will not bear many fruits because people will still have difficulties to come," said Diego Barreto, tour operator of Rio Maximo Tours.

And what Brazil wants now is to attract as many foreign visitors as possible as the country is sinking into recession and is in need of hard currency.

Feature: ESTABLISHING A PRISON LIBRARY

BY Nkechinyere Nwoji

 

My first visit to the prison was in my undergraduate days as a student of Library studies/sociology. Sociology was my minor and we were expected to visit a prison so my department organized a visit to Enugu Prison.

I went to the prison for the second time, as a staff with ZODML, I was asked to establish a library after we noticed  the interest inmates  took in reading when ZODML ran a mobile library services every forth night with a branded ZODML bus for one year at Ikoyi Prison.

 Prison libraries are established with the approval of the Nigerian Prison Services.

Books for the library are sourced through purchase, donations from Individuals and organizations that partner with us in our prison project such as Public Affairs Section of U.S Embassy. Materials selected are bestsellers, Inspirational,motivational and textbooks for inmates’ course study.

After establishing the library, inmates are trained on how to charge material which is a process of borrowing books out and getting them back to the library.

REACTION OF INMATES:  Overall inmates were happy and asked for more

REACTION FROM PRISON AUTHORITY: The prison authority expressed appreciation to ZODML for creating reading culture among inmates.

FOR ME: Establishment of a prison library gives me great joy and I wish I had the opportunity to take it to more prisons across the country

So far ZODML has established libraries in IkoyiPriosn, Kirikiri Medium Prison and KirikiriMaximium Prison

-Miss Nwoji, a Librarian, Works in Lagos