Empowering Young Brazilians - Art and Mobilization

Dear Viva a Vida Friends and Supporters,

We are so excited to start this year with wonderful news! One of our theater graduates, Alice, a tongue-tied teenager, from a violent and poor neighborhood, with mental health problems and serious family difficulties, has been accepted into a prestigious state university to study philosophy!

“The theater was my refuge... I was always very reserved with everyone, the theater helped me to be less afraid of the world and made more open to getting to know new people and having new experiences”.

Alice loves philosophy, but other people were always discouraging her from applying for the course. A state school student, living in an extremely violent neighborhood and without support from her family, Alice didn’t have any reason to believe she’d be capable of entering a public university.

A sweet girl, who experienced many difficulties throughout her life, Alice came to Viva a Vida through its theater course when she was 14 years old and remained until she was 18. During this period, she acted brilliantly in a number of V2 Theatre Group performances.

In 2019, she returned as a student for drawing and graffiti classes in the #VivaJuntosSustentabilidade (#LivingTogetherSustainabilty) project.

“When the theater was in recess (when the project’s funding ended) I knew I needed something to occupy my mind… that was when I started taking the graffiti classes”.

During this period, Alice confronted perhaps the most sensitive moment of her personal life. She comes from a religious family and has suffered a lot of discrimination for her life choices. Art was always a great challenge for Alice, the interpretations, being in someone else’s shoes, the escape, the refuge… this young woman has always had to prove to her family that art has benefited her life, including her health.

Alice suffers from depression and her family has never understood the illness. They have always related her behavior to religious factors. So, throughout her adolescence she was “encouraged” to participate in religious rites to ‘cure’ her illness.

“I didn't want to be a burden… when they began to notice, they had the reaction I expected, they said that I was looking for attention and this really deepened my depression.”

Despite knowing about this illness Alice needed to follow the recommendations of those who were responsible for her. It was at Viva a Vida that Alice was really able to feel safe enough to talk about her feelings. She established a strong relationship with Theatre Teacher Simone Requião and became stronger in her convictions and attitudes.

“I have lost count of the number of times I went to class trying not to cry and it was enough for her (Simone) to look at me and give me a hug and I couldn’t contain my tears.”

A significant breach occurred at the end of 2019, when Alice was physically attacked by her father and brother. With no support from other family members, she had nowhere to live. This was when Viva a Vida’s president stepped in and offered her somewhere temporary to stay, while she sorted out her problems.

“I was desperate, I wanted to end everything, I couldn’t bear to live with them, nor with myself”.

At this point, Alice was already 19 years old and opted to stay away from her family and try to reconstruct her life. She notes that it was the NGO that supported her in finding specialized psychological assistance and ensured that all the apparatus of support was available to her, in line with Viva a Vida’s Child Protection Approach and Policy.

“I went to get help from the NGO and they took me in, I was more frail than ever, and this new family helped me and gave me support in every way and it was through their support that I passed the university entrance examination”.

During this period, Alice, with support from Viva a Vida’s president, applied to join the philosophy degree at the prestigious Bahia State University (UNEB) – one of her dreams. We well remember how her lack of confidence and low self-esteem nearly prevented her from having the courage to fill out the application.

But, on the contrary, with Viva a Vida’s support, Alice is about to start this university philosophy degree. On her own merits, with no special preparatory course, studying at home, in the middle of all the chaos she has suffered, Alice has triumphed! It’s time for something so important for her life – a new beginning…

“When I got the news that I had passed the exam, I was speechless, because I had no hope, I didn’t feel capable of it. But there were people who believed in me and I am so grateful to these people.”

Massive congratulations to Alice, we look forward to seeing her keep growing and learning!

In other news, the end of the old year and the start of the new is a time for evaluation, reflection and planning at Viva a Vida. These are some of the activities your fantastic support has made possible over this period:

• Giving Tuesday – December 2 is Giving Tuesday and, with support from the GlobalGiving platform and your donations, Viva a Vida ran a campaign to encourage people to help transform the lives of young people in the Vila de Abrantes community. Through social media we raised U$ 885.00, which has been transformed into materials for our graffiti classes, benefiting 20 new students to the #VivaJuntosSustentabilidade (#LivingTogetherSustainabilty) project, who will learn drawing and mount an exhibition of their great work.
• Eradicating Child Labor – Before the year ended we met with the Commission to Eradicate Child Labor to align our agendas for the construction of a municipal plan of activities to prevent and combat child labor. Following this meeting, Viva a Vida formed a partnership with the local Social Work and Specialized Social Work Reference Centers, through which we have made 20 places available exclusively for adolescents identified as child laborers on the new Graffiti and Human Right course.
• Political Activism - Youth:
  • Viva a Vida’s young people participated in a sensational exchange on December 17 including very rich experiences with the young people from the Zé Ferina Library, an institution that provides training in politics, literature and cinema in the extremely violent Salvador neighborhood of Beiru. Our young people were able to learn about how to construct and maintain a community structure based on the principles of social struggle.
  • On February 12, the young people also got to know the activist group Reaja ou Será Morto (React or Be Killed) which is made up of activists fighting against the genocide of the black population. The movement has been active for 10 years and pushes back against the racism perpetuated by the Brazilian state. “I was so impressed with the Group REAJA, it was so good to see how they have resisted alone and continue to resist.” said Lucas a 21-year-old Viva a Vida assistant.
• Evaluation and Reflection:
  • Evaluation with our young assistances is full of surprises and learning. Having young people supporting the management of the NGO is not for everyone and we are so proud to have them at the “command” of this social transformation machine. We met in December to evaluate this process and traced our time line, re-examining targets and celebrating achievements! The assistants identified their learning over this period; it was great to see how the training is working for them. Some examples of learning include: learning how to deal with people; learning how to work in a team; learning how to seek one’s rights; learning how to contribute to other people’s lives, even if they’re different from ours; learning to be concerned about the growth and learning of others – great work team!
  • Evaluation of the #VivaJuntosSustentabilidade beneficiaries: This group began in June and has brought so much pleasure to everyone: art exhibitions, arts events, great graffiti and poetry. Lives transformed and transforming. On 17 February we finalized the first stage of the project with an evaluation session.
  • Team: the year began on January 8 with evaluation and reflection mediated by Juracy Bahia, a student of economy and third sector management, youth worker and one of Viva a Vida’s founders. The day was full of satisfaction at the great results achieved in 2019.
• Volunteering: on January 8 we received a team from a large sports brand (we are not able to divulge its name yet), with the promise of a solid volunteer partnership – fingers crossed!!
• Awards: Another award! We are extremely happy to have been one of three institutions chosen out of 37 social organizations around Brazil for the Ideal Social Volunteer Advisory Award. In 2020, we will receive extremely significant professional Fundraising training from the agency; our first meeting is booked for 23 March – onwards and upwards!
• Human and Socio-environmental Rights, Racism and Violence Workshops: One more year of partnership with the State College of Vila de Abrantes. For over five years, Viva a Vida has provided Human and Socio-environmental Rights, Racism and Violence Workshops as part of the school’s annual calendar and this year the young people from the #VivaJuntosSustentabilidade project will support this work. On February 3 we attended Teachers’ Planning Day at the college to begin organizing these activities.
• Integration: Viva a Vida’s Integration Day is our symbolic first day of the year following the summer holidays, when we look at our results and targets and plan the year. To help us begin with power and happiness, we invited Alberto Paim to run an clown workshop on February 6, it was amazing. 2020 is starting well!
• Planning: February was the month to plan classes that start in March:
  • Drawing classes with long term students including graffiti and political training – 10 students;
  • Graffiti and political awareness training for adolescent child laborers – 20 students;
  • Human and Socio-environmental Rights, Racism and Violence Workshops for more than 200 high school students.

Dear Viva a Vida Friends and Supporters!

Today we’d like to tell you about an amazing woman, a valued partner at the local high school, whose presence, enthusiasm and energy makes so much difference, lighting up the future for our young participants. 

“There is a difference in the young people who participate in [Viva a Vida]. Dialogue with them always comes through this lens of coexistence and awareness of their role in transformation.  Young people need to occupy this space.  The arts give them this potential and this creative energy”.

 Education cannot be limited to the four walls of the classroom.  It needs to make connections with its surroundings.  Education is life itself and must be linked to it”.

This story has a slightly different format.  In fact, this wasn’t our plan, but when we interviewed the Education Coordinator at CEVA (as we call the high school), we discovered another talent… one for narrative, someone who can move and enchant us.  That’s why we are going to transcribe what Simone Alves so affectionately shared with us.  This story brings together three noteworthy aspects for our work: EDUCATION, VIVA A VIDA and THE POWER OF BLACK WOMEN.

Simone Alves is one of those women who captivate you at first sight, she is black, with a strong but sweet voice, wears high heels, is a veritable work machine!  CEVA, a Viva a Vida partner for more than 5 years, has received, more than that, welcomed our ideology and projects.  The Director Adriano Souza, with Vice-Directors Sandra Barbosa and Talma Paz, have always granted us respect and provided unequal partnership, which needs to be acknowledged.

But we have chosen to talk about Simone for a number of reasons, the main one being that we are commemorating Black Consciousness Month right now, and, at the same time, constructing a new project aimed at girls and women. So we felt the need to focus on her story, which encourages us, confirming the challenges we face in Vila de Abrantes, but also demonstrating her huge capacity to overcome them.  She is an inspiring example for both our vision and the future of our young participants.

She has worked in education for more than 20 years, beginning her experience in a municipal school in the neighborhood of Saramandaia (an extremely vulnerable area in Salvador), where she was invited to work as a teacher in a private school and three years later as the Education Coordinator.  During her career, she has also worked as an education consultant in companies (the publishing market), during which she got to know the whole of Brazil.

“[on being a teacher and moving around Brazil as a consultant]… A challenge for a woman and a black one too, to work in teacher training in such different places and at the same time covering countless miles alone.  But for an ideal!”

“Which made me think I could help people.  And public education is the place for this!  What motivated me at the time was training teachers and knowing that, one way or another, that training would reach the students: through methodological innovations and changes to attitudes!”

Simone got the job at CEVA by passing a public examination, but she was afraid of going into a public school and changing its principals about quality education.

“My educational references are founded on the ideas of Paulo Freire (popular and political education) and Anísio Teixeira (education is not a privilege for the elite).  For this reason, I saw the human potential, that’s why I gradually succumbed to their ideals, entered the public service and gained the title of civil servant.  I am at the public’s service.  That’s why I chose it!”

“Every day I dream of seeing public schools as the only reference centers for quality education”.

Working in Brazil’s public education network, specifically in Vila de Abrantes, is a challenge with many faces: professional team training, institutional racism, infrastructure, violence in the community and many others.

“The challenges are daily and constant: the first is to push for an epistemological examination of education in our times!  Study and research have to be constants in my teacher training activities.  To coordinate a team of education professionals is to care about training, to keep the teaching staff up to date and to commit to this ‘choice’.”

“Racism is engrained when they don’t believe in your potential. In this arena, a black woman should be providing other services.  I have compartmentalized every minute of my work.  As an educator I am preoccupied with the coordination of teachers and in thinking about education.  I point this out every time I’m expected to do something else.  It’s not that I can’t perform other tasks. But racism knows exactly where, to which skin color, it seeks to impose its desires.  I am careful in this compartmentalization.  I remain vigilant and attentive the whole time. Sexism comes out and presents itself at various moments.  I combat this, either by being more assertive or more loving, warning people delicately and subtly.”

At the high school, Viva a Vida works with about 600 students per year through workshops in Human and Socio-environmental Rights for adolescents from 14 to 17 years old, in the first year of high school, using arts-education as a tool to discuss urban violence, racism and drug abuse.  The partnership between our NGO and the school is essential in order to have an impact on these young people’s life projects.  CEVA understands the role played by our activities, supports us in all our actions and recognizes our activities in the community.

“The search for partners is due to the management team’s belief in the power of collaboration.  Joining forces is the first pillar for us to gain ground.  Education cannot be limited to the four walls of the classroom.  It needs to make connections with its surroundings.  Education is life itself and must be linked to it”.

We note that we have seen a number of other partnerships since the beginning of the 2019 academic year, one highlight being the psychology center, which powerfully addresses the theme of suicide, and in many meetings and debates about racism and the empowerment of the black population.

“I have been at CEVA since January. I participated in registration.  And at that moment I saw a new reality: leaving the publishing space, with its air-conditioning and all its technological and luxurious apparatus, to occupy a space that isn’t so comfortable, but contains people who will conquer the spaces they desire very quickly.  They will be able to choose!”

At Viva a Vida, we believe in the same ideas as Simone, who certainly represents the ideas of the high school.

“I chose here! To emancipate people and help this project.  It’s an ideal!  To provide a public school of quality (if not in its physical space, in its human and educational differential).

To emancipate people is embedded within our institutional mission, to teach adolescents and young people the road to strength and empowerment.  Where they can make assertive choices… and this begins in the school arena… without a doubt!

“For me a quality school is a school which understands its historical setting.  Which respects diversity, which recognizes what it means to learn, which makes connections with life.  Which gives voice to students, which points out the pathways, which is joyful and fun, because learning is about joy.  Which goes beyond education: which emancipates!”

“My work is making this public school the best: a reference center!  This depends on me too.  I am involved in this! Since I was born, I have chosen teaching.  Education is dedication, research, study and commitment to change! I believe in this.”

Let’s hear what she specifically has to say about Education, Viva a Vida and Racism, which demonstrates how we are on the same path as our valued colleagues at the high school, fighting together for a brilliant future!

EDUCATION

“Education has always moved me and seeing people fulfilling their dreams and overcoming barriers pleases and satisfies me.  I am a product of this history!  Education also happens with political responsibility and intentionality.”

ASSOCIAÇÃO VIVA A VIDA

“Viva a  Vida has great relevance to our work and a direct impact.  Political awareness, respect and critical awareness are elements that the young people who are both there and here at CEVA explicitly demonstrate. There is a difference in the young people who participate in [Viva a Vida]. Dialogue with them always comes through this lens of coexistence and awareness of their role in transformation.  Young people need to occupy this space.  The arts give them this potential and creative energy.”

INSTITUTIONAL RACISM/SEXISM/BEING A BLACK WOMAN

“As a black woman, I see institutional racism the whole time.  I see it when they come to find someone from the management team and I’m there, and they ask me the same question, even when I introduce myself as the Coordinator. Racism is perverse and it does not accept a black woman in a role like this!”

Congratulations on your great work, Simone! Let’s carry on in this struggle together, always believing in the transformative power of education and art, so that young people can overcome the vulnerabilities imposed on them by society.

These spring months have been full of poetry, graffiti and music, with young artists and leaders involved in exhibitions, recitals and much more!  Find out what your generosity has supported since the end of August:

• III NIGHT CLASS CONGRESS/CEVA – Our young poet, Thiago Almir participated in the III Congress for Night Class Students at the State College of Vila de Abrantes, which had the theme: movements of resistance and representativeness in power arenas; Barbara Carine led the roundtable dialogue. Viva poetry as an instrument of resistance!
• MUSIC AND POETRY EVENING – Mission provided is mission accomplished. The young people from the #VivaJuntosSustentabilidade(LivingTogetherSustainability) project held their first Music and Poetry Event on 21 September at our community center.  It was an open mic event for other artists from the community. “I felt really comfortable, I felt at home, I really liked the artistic performances and the way everyone is welcome", said one of the young poets.
• On 30 September, Viva a Vida participated in another SUPPORT THE FUNDS training session run by the Boticario Institute in partnership with Camaçari’s Municipal Child and Adolescent Rights Council.
• JACA ARTS EVENT – JACA or the Group of Young Activists from Cajazeiras, celebrated its 15^th anniversary of community arts and activism.  We believe this to be the biggest community arts event in the city and it was a fantastic demonstration of resistance and courage!  The #VivaJuntosSustentabilidadegroup was honored to participate in the event on 19 October - a hugely important exchange of experiences for their training.
• Viva a Vida’s young leader Priscila Assunção attended a meeting of Camaçari’s Municipal Child and Adolescent Rights Council as part of our agenda of activities for young people to find out about and develop public oversight activities and activism.
• CIDADE DO SABER EXHIBITION – On 31 October the Camaçari’s Municipal Plan for Child and Adolescent Rights was presented at the Cidade do Saber Exhibition Center. This was a great event bringing together representatives of those working with children and adolescents in the municipality.  Viva a Vida was present, exhibiting the #VivaJuntosproject graffiti panels and photographs. Visiting participants admired the work and discussed their Human Rights themes with our young artists. Viva to the organizations that fight so hard to guarantee the rights of children and adolescents.
• On 6 November the final SUPPORT THE FUNDS meeting was held to present projects. This was to mark the culmination of four monthly training meetings mediated by Andréa Moreira from the Yaba Consultancy in Sustainable Development and Social Investment.  Viva a Vida’s contributed in the form of political poetry recited by young poet Jesse Jasal and Youth Worker Marcos Paulo.
•  Our 2^nd MUSIC AND POETRY EVENINGwasheld on at Viva a Vida on 9 November, including a rap battle, a violin performance, other music and lots of poetry!
• Artist Rubens Chagas brightened up our day! The young artists and leaders from the #VivaJuntosSustentabilidadeproject were privileged to receive Rubens and hear his thoughts about drawing and graffiti, filling the center with energy and color!