By Cressida Evans | General Coordinator
Dear Viva a Vida Microproject Supporters!
Thanks to your extremely generous support, we will able to keep our community space open for another three months and are hopeful that, with support from other funders, we will complete our year of activities for the young people of Vila de Abrantes!
Find out more about some of the activities our young participants have been involved since we launched the microproject:
In the first term of 2018, the #VivaJuntos Project offered Human Rights and Youth Workshops toseven classes from the first year of high school. Here is some of the poetry they produced as part of these workshops:
“We have to fight for our equalities
The right to have our liberty
Just because I am black
More respect please
We are all equal
But we need to proclaim our peace
We have to have the courage to fight for equalities
And thus unite society
We all have to have humility
To then gain our liberty
Unity, compassion and perseverance
To join forces and fight for our rights”
With thanks to Cailane, Evellyn, Kailany and Miqueias!
The second module of the #VivaJuntos Project has now started with Youth Leadership, photography and graffiti workshops, exchange experiences and field visits for 40 adolescents.
Graffiti news: we are particularly proud of Jesse, one of our poetry and graffiti stars of 2017, who ran a technical drawing workshop for this year’s participants. Peer education and knowledge multiplication – Jesse demonstrated genuine Youth Leadership and Empowerment!
Photography news: on 11 September a group of budding photographers visited the Pituaçu Park in Salvador to test out their new skills and took some beautiful photographs reflecting on the theme of the environment.
BIG GET TOGETHER
The first of September was a chance to bring all our young participants, staff and Board members together in a Big Get Together held in our community space, which YOU have helped to keep open! This was a chance to find out a bit more about how the organization is run, make sure everyone has a voice and share all our learning and experiences. Our young photographers used this opportunity to take some dynamic photos, while the young poets recited their poetry and our young actors enacted scenes from their play!
Rehearsals and performances of the play In Dependence, devised by members of the G2 Theater Group for the project Theater in debate: have you thought of that? The play, which addresses violence, racism, homophobia and family dysfunction, encourages young people to reflect on themes relevant to their community through post-performance debates. This year alone more than 500 community members have watched and debated the play.
Hear how some audience members have responded when asked what most attracted them to the play:
“About racism, I thought it was interesting when the character gained a voice they hadn’t had and at the end was able to deal with the situation and show that we have many more similarities than might appear and that we have to learn to look at these similarities because we are all equal, independent of sexuality, color or gender and I understood that this was a way of saying ‘I am here’”, young male audience member.
“The bit about love in the perfect family, where they hide everything [the parents don’t recognize that their daughter is a bully and a racist] and they think they are the perfect family, but in fact there is no love between them, because if there was love it wouldn’t be like this”. Mother and audience member.
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