This work was conducted from 2011–13 as part of the ‘Housing- Manufacturing-Water for the Urban Poor’ project. See http://www.hmw.tu-berlin.de. In the past decade, grassroots organisations, as community-based and self- organised movements, have emerged in Brazil to deal with existing massive urban inequalities, especially in relation to the living conditions in ‘favelas’. Today, these movements and actors are working within network structures, engaging with new partners, in order to develop better support mechanisms.