Brazil is trying to turn its largest slum into a tourist attraction. Foreign visitors are being offered conducted tours through a favela that is home to 250,000 people.
Built on a mountainside overlooking the famous Ipanema Beach, Rocinha is Latin America's biggest shantytown and is usually avoided by middle-class locals who fear for their safety.
But in an unprecedented step, the authorities will next week take their first busload of adventurous tourists into the district in an attempt to show outsiders the real Brazil.
Far from exploiting the misery of its inhabitants, officials say the unusual programme will bring economic benefits to a community riddled with poverty and crime.
Paulo Cesar Martins Vieira, president of Rocinha's Neighbourhood Association, said: "We want people to see what life is really like in a favela [slum]. It isn't as dangerous and violent as everyone thinks.
"We have a vibrant community here with many things going on. If people visit Rocinha they will see the truth behind Rio's usual tourist cliches, because this is how the majority of us Brazilians live."
When visitors arrive at the newly-built reception centre, they will be met by teenagers hired to show them around the favela.
Thelma Santos, manager of the Rocinha Tourist Development project, said: "We want Rocinha to maximise its tourist potential and hopefully provide a new source of money for this needy community.
"Some tourists already visit us but they generally never set foot on the ground. They remain in jeeps and are driven around. They never buy anything and they never meet the people who live here, so they have no idea about the place. Real tourism would bring economic benefits to Rocinha because tourists will actually buy things from the residents."
With local sponsorship, the team of teenage neighbourhood guides has been put on a crash course learning English. If the project proves successful, the officials plan to select another group of youngsters and teach them German, French and Spanish (they already speak Portuguese).
"We want the visitors to be shown around by the people who actually live here and not someone who lives in a comfortable house down the road but happens to be a professional tourist guide," Ms Santos explained.
"Those teenagers that can speak reasonable English will also be able to make some money for their families by becoming guides."
The teenagers will take visitors on a walking tour of the steep, narrow, almost medieval-like alleyways that criss-cross the favela. There will also be a photostop, where the tourists can take pictures at what is arguably Rio's best viewing point.
Afterwards, the tour will stop at several local bars and shops as well as schools, youth projects and the slum's famous samba school. However, officials have stopped short of guaranteeing the personal safety of tourists.
"This place isn't dangerous," said Ms Santos. "It's nothing compared to downtown Rio or New York. There, people get mugged all the time.
"The local people here are just like those living anywhere else. It's because they are poor that they get a bad reputation."
Already some of the more enterprising locals are preparing for the hoped-for tourist invasion.
Market stallholder Alexandre Pitanga has taken delivery of hundreds of T-shirts bearing the legends "100 per cent Rocinha" and "The Biggest in Latin America".
"I think they will be very popular because tourists always like to take a souvenir home so they can remember their travels," he said.
"People don't need to be afraid of coming here. It's just like any other place they visit. We might be poor but there are a lot of happy people here and I promise that the tourists will see more smiling faces in Rocinha than anywhere else in Rio."
More than 250,000 people live in Rocinha, with families often sleeping four or five to a single room. Some homes have no clean water or proper sanitation, while others are so structurally weak that they are often swept away during Brazil's seasonal rains.
Currently, the vast majority of Rio's one million annual visitors stick to the tourist hot spots of Copocabana Beach, Sugar Loaf Mountain and the famous statue of Christ.