Empowering Young Brazilians - Art and Mobilization

Dear Viva a Vida Friends and Supporters,

Happy New Year – here’s hoping that 2021 is full of health and wellbeing for all!

Since our last report, we have dedicated our efforts to completing and publicizing the documentary series we told you about last time. Thanks to your generous donations, as the schools remain closed, we have also focused on social action for the most vulnerable members of our community, who have been particularly hard hit by the health and economic consequences of the pandemic. We are so proud of how hard Viva a Vida’s young leaders have worked to support others!

The documentary series “ASCENDENDO IDEIAS”, or “LIFTING UP IDEAS”, provides a critical analysis of how Brazil’s drug policy has been constructed and its ramifications for the black population, particularly for young people.

It will be launched in 2021 and includes 13 episodes that touch on topics ranging from anthropology to the justice system and discuss the moral concept of drugs, religion, racism, stigma and class, decriminalization and legislation, the media, drug dealing and trafficking, genocide, crime, the police, child labor and harm reduction.

Before the official launch, we have posted the first nine episodes on our social media, and more than one thousand, six hundred people have accessed it!

With your support and with funding from the Global Fund for Children, we will be able to disseminate learning from the documentary to six schools, training teachers and other employees on the theme of Drug Policy. Through film sessions and debates, approximately 100 adults will participate in this training, as well as 100 high school students.

“Your work is so good. We’re going to start internal training and finding out about your work is fundamental to this,” said Luana Malheiros, anthropologist and founder member of the Collective Balance Harm Reduction.

“I really liked the teaching from Arts-Educator Marcos Paulo. Wars against Drugs are racial, selective and directly affect the black population”, said Antônio Ferreira, from the State Forum for the Prevention and Eradication of Child Labor and the Protection of Adolescent Workers in Bahia (FETIPA).

“Congratulations to Associação Viva a Vida. Excellent work. We recommend that everyone watches this and that the material be used to train families and young people,” said Baja Ubirajara– President of Camaçari’s Municipal Council for the Rights of the Child and Adolescent

SOCIAL AND EMERGENCY ACTION

The Drop of Love (Pingo de Amor) Project, located in Vila de Abrantes, organized an activity to donate toys to the Cordoaria Quilombo Traditional Community, and Viva a Vida took advantage of this opportunity to donate 100 kits of hand sanitizer, sanitary pads, paper tissues and masks, collected and distributed by our young leaders, in partnership with the NGOs Aldeias SOS and PLAN International

MOVING HOUSE 

We started the year reorganizing our local presence. Due to the pandemic, since March 2020, we have been unable to undertake direct activities, and have been providing services remotely. For this reason, and because of restricted funding, we have decided to close our administrative center and work remotely for the time being.