Do I need a Visa to travel to Brazil?

Yes. It is possible to obtain a volunteer visa to come to Brazil, but we tell our volunteers to apply for a regular tourist visa instead of a volunteer visa (VITEM-I). A volunteer visa may cost too much (up to 1000$) and can take up to six months to be issued due to all the administrative paperwork between the Embassies. When our volunteers arrive in Brazil with a tourist visa, the officer at customs will stamps on their passports how long they can stay in the country. We tell them to ensure the officer stamps a 90-day permit. If they will stay for a period longer than 90 days, it is very easy and fast (30 minutes) to renew it for another 90 days.
More information about volunteer visas can be found at: http://www.brazil.org.uk/

Can I use my cell phone in Brazil?

I'ts great to be connected when you are in Brazil and since many of the peopel you'll be working with have cel phones or atleast a phone availabe to them, nothing beats a cellular phone for expediting communications and working out logistics between facilitators, NGO leaders, and yourself. You'll also feel safer knowing that you can call for help in any situation. Moreover, it's nice to have a way for friends and family back at home to contact you at any time.

So here are your options:

1. Get your Cellular carrier in your home country to enable "international roaming." Some carry this and some do not. Check with your cellular service provider. This is the most expensive route to go and often the service abroad is less than acceptable
2. Rent a phone at the airport. You can get rolling with a new celly straight from the airport by stopping by one of several kiosks that offer cel phone rental to foreigners. This is can be very painless since you are guaranteed service immediately.
3. Swap your GSM chip. Brazil cellular systems operate on the 1800Mghz frequency which means that any GSM enabled, tri-band or quad-band phone should work with Brazilian cellular service providers. All you have to do is take out your home service provider's chip and swap it with a Brazilian service provider's chip. You instantly have credits and a phone number. You can "recharge" the credits on your phone by buying cards available anywhere. You enter call a number, enter the card's number and you've got another 20 reais to work with.
   The big catch here is that you need to make sure your phone is not blocked by your current service provider. If you bought your phone in connection with a "plan" and you want to keep that plan, then you're probably out of luck unless you want to do some quick online shopping and buy yourself a GSM unblocked triband phone. They're readily available and some with limited features can be very affordable.