WOW - Women of the World Rio had its first edition in 2018, after Jude Kelly and Eliana Sousa Silva (Founder of Redes da Maré) planned to launch the first festival of its kind in Latin America, in the city of Rio de Janeiro. It was held in November 2018 and was the biggest ever WOW Festival, with 193,000 people in attendance during three days of activities in central Rio.

During the pandemic, the movement in Rio continued, with “Warm up sessions”, online versions of the Festival.. After a five-year hiatus of the actual festival, Rio de Janeiro hosted WOW Rio again on 27-29 October 2023. The event occupied Praça Mauá, in the port area of ​​the city, and featured around 200 activities that explored Dialogues; Activism Network; Art, Culture and Territory and Entrepreneurship, with the participation of more than 500 guests from different parts of Brazil and the world.

WOW Rio de Janeiro is produced by Redes da Maré. Redes da Maré is a civil society organisation that was born out of community mobilisation in the 1980s in the favelas of Maré, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Founded in 2007, its mission is to weave the necessary networks to enforce the rights of the population of the 16 favelas of Maré, where more than 140,000 people live. I works in different streams of activities and programmes, from Education, Arts, Human Rights, Access to Health and Justice, Women's Rights and Identity History.

Nowadays, it employs over 300 people, mostly residents of the Favelas of Maré and is known as one of the most prominent NGOs in the country

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