Empowering Young Brazilians - Art and Mobilization

Dear Friend and Supporter

Today we’d like to tell you about the launch of the Afro-library (Afroteca) we opened with your amazing support! It was a great celebration in the main square of the Cordoaria Quilombo. The Afro-library is a community library set up to receive up to 20 children at a time for activities related to black, quilombola and indigenous literature; the library contains over 140 books. 

We are working with 70 children in play and education activities that reinforce the concepts of grammar, reading and, above all, racial identity. In the second semester, a further 400 children from public schools in the region will also benefit from the itinerant Afroteca.

Our group of educators have organized a timetable that includes storytelling, cinema, workshops with play, handicrafts, music and poetry, all to improve the education rates that were hit so hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, when classes were interrupted for 3 years. And, clearly, to promote the reclaiming of quilombo identity by the people who live there.

Maju, our lovely storyteller, launched this literary landmark through tales from the books I feel what I feel and Makeba goes to school by the Bahian authors Lázaro Ramos and Ana Fátima.

Former project beneficiary and current Viva a Vida Culture Coordinator, Thiago the Revolutionary Poet, performed his poetry.

Representatives from government and private companies also attended, but what really set our hearts beating was the fantastic community presence!

Afroteca activities will continue throughout the year with regular workshops held during the after-school period, and as a lending library with storytelling on Saturdays.

Viva the Democratization of Literature and for a world in which the Human Right to Read also matters!

Huge thanks to all of you who donate to Viva a Vida and make this great work possible.

AFROTECA ACTIVITIES 

1. Regular workshops: since March we have worked with the two schools located in the quilombo, with children aged from 3 to 12 years old, almost 70 in total. Three times a week, the children spend their afternoons in the Afroteca, following an educational development plan devised for each child. The books read during these activities were: Alika by Regina Luz, I feel what I feel by Lázaro Ramos, What face? by Solange Barros, Koumba and the Diambê drum by Madu Costa and I want a hug by Stela Barbieri.
2. Storytelling in the Square: we’ve had three storytelling meetings, with about 30 children attending each, sitting in the middle of the square and enjoying the stories. These always involve characters who relate their experiences and talk about where they live, such as, I feel what I feel by Lázaro Ramos, Makeba goes to school by Ana Fátima, Love of Hair, by Matthew A. Cherry and Me and my place by Vânia Abreu
3. Community Library: on Saturdays, the Afroteca’s doors are thrown open to the community. Our team receives children who turn up to read, draw, play and, to our delight and surprise, even create their own storybooks!
4. Prevention and Combatting Sexual Violence and Exploitation: to mark 18 May, when all our efforts are dedicated to remembering the need for public policies that protect children and adolescents from sexual violence, we went to the Quilombo School and discussed the book Don’t touch me, you fool which addresses this topic. We then held a large circle debate to discuss myths and realities and listened to what the children had to say in this delicate moment of learning.

RASTA CINE EVENING

In May, we held our first Cine Evening with the theme KEMET or Egypt. These events constitute a strategy to involve the young people from the quilombo in our activities. The idea is to create a safe space for young people to discuss relevant themes so that later we can return to running Political Awareness training with adolescents and young people from the community.

There were many attractions including: the quilombo’s Aquilombar capoeira group, poetry from the Revolutionary Poet and Luca, and a showing of the film Nó from Midi Alves, focused on valuing black women.

It’s worth noting that all of this was organized by our Culture Coordinator, Thiago, who is also, as mentioned, a former beneficiary, volunteer and now a member of our board.

WOMEN’S COLLECTIVE

In March, Évelin, our General Coordinator, received homage in an event at the first school we worked with in Vila de Abrantes. The idea was to pay homage to women who provide social and educational well-being activities in the neighborhood. This led to many ideas, culminating in a proposal to set up a collective for women in the region to discuss their issues in a safe space and break paradigms. The Render Women’s Collective was thus born – the group, which meets monthly, is currently reading the book “Women who run with Wolves”.

POLITICAL TRAINING WITH YOUNG PEOPLE

At their invitation, we visited a public school in Monte Gordo, a neighborhood close to where we work, to hold a circle dialogue with young people about “Racism and Youth: what does this have to do with me?” Educator Marcos Paulo and the Revolutionary Poet turned the auditorium into a space for debate and reflection.

THEATER

The V2 theater group has long been in recess because of a lack of funding, but came together to support the doctoral thesis of director, actress and theatre teacher Simone Requiao, who worked with the group for more than 5 years. Simone and the Viva a Vida actors presented a sketch focused on topics that are highly relevant today: homophobia, racism and violence against women. The presentation took place in the Martins Gonçalves theater at the Federal University of Bahia’s Theater School.

THEORY OF CHANGE

Juracy Bahia, our President, is in the second phase of helping us construct this important instrument for conscious and appropriate planning. During June and July the team is coming together to consider pathways, possibilities and interventions for the community where are work is focused.

Dear Friends and Supporters

Success story – coming back home!!

One of Viva a Vida’s principles is to apply your amazing donations to train young people and provide the community with new experiences, in terms of both qualifications, and social and political development. All of this is undertaken from the perspective of empowerment and the pursuit of autonomy. Over the years, we have developed important projects with our Viva Juntos group of young people, training them in different areas of art and social management. And little by little, at various times, some of them have joined our team.

Now in 2023, with your help, we have started the year reinforcing this approach and today, three of our young participants, former project beneficiaries, have joined the team and are being paid for their work!

Lucas, who is 22 years old, has joined our team as Assistant to the Coordinator. For five years, Lucas was a member of our V2 Theater Group; when he began taking theater classes he was feeling extremely vulnerable because of his sexuality. He had been involved in gay relationships but was experiencing a lot of internal conflict and problems with his family, who practice a religion that does not ‘accept’ homosexuality. These conflicts and excessive suppression meant that he was very shy and ultimately led to depression; at one point he was cutting himself to deal with his mental anguish. Through the theater, he began to feel much more liberated and to develop his potential. Today, he is a member of the team, occupying a very important position advising the General Coordinator in administrative activities and transforming, day by day, into an empowered and autonomous young man, passing on his learning to his peers as a knowledge multiplier. His target for this year is return to education and study administration at university. He has gained the respect of his mother, who is also now a volunteer at Viva a Vida!

“I was very depressed again, at home and with no prospects, which was when I asked Evelin if she knew of anywhere that was hiring people, and I was so surprised when she said, yes, Viva a Vida was. I cried! Talking to my mum that day, I said I was starting to live again.”

Ana Clara is 23 years old, a psychology student and has been hired as an Assistant for our Afroteca library. Ana Clara was also a member of the theatre group, she had moved to Bahia from another state and was having a lot of difficulties adapting, until she joined Viva a Vida and started learning the art of theater. Although she was shy, she was very dedicated and acted in significant roles. She started studying psychology and, although she has overcome a great deal, she still suffers from shyness and problems with her self-image. For Ana Clara, returning to Viva a Vida has provided her with a new opportunity to carry on conquering her frailties.

“I am so honored by this invitation to work at Viva a Vida. The NGO is ‘saving’ my life again.”

Thiago is 22 years old and a youth cultural mobilizer; today he is known as the Revolution Poet. Some of you may have heard of Thiago, he has a long history of partnership and love with Viva a Vida, and you can follow his story in many of our reports and publications. Thiago found out about our work through our Human Rights and Racism workshops and then became a member of the Viva Juntos project, since when he has reached incredible heights. Having got mixed up in a drug-trafficking gang, he came to Viva a Vida feeling very bitter, with family problems and few prospects. Through literature, Thiago discovered poetry and so far he has written five books. He has become a role model for other young people in the State of Bahia. This year, as a member of the Viva a Vida team, he will be responsible for running Arts Events aimed at engaging young people and training them in how to mobilize political support.

“I’m so pleased to represent Viva a Vida, it changed my life. Now I have to do the same for other people.”

Afroteca Muvuca

Viva a Vida has received funding through the Projects that Transform Lives grant of Braskem, a private company, to set up the first physical Afroteca Muvuca library in Bahia. This is aimed at working with literature and identity with 90 children from the Cordoaria Quilombo in Vila de Abrantes, pupils at four local elementary schools. The Afroteca Muvuca will be located in a container equipped to receive 20 children per day, three times a week, with monthly storytelling activities open to all the community. It will contain 150 books on black, indigenous and quilombola themes, which will be used in classes applying an educational plan constructed by educators specializing in Afro-centered Education.

New office

In order to run a project of this size, we have decided to open a new office in the Cordoaria Quilombo and establish Viva a Vida there as a mechanism to support the community. Working with traditional peoples strengthens our mission and our strategy, whose main aim is to combat racism.

This is also part of Viva a Vida’s institutional strengthening strategy, which, over the coming years, will be focused on creating strong links with public and private bodies in order to become a center of reference for work with Human Rights in the State of Bahia, specifically with traditional peoples and black youth.

First meeting about Education for Ethnic-Race Relations

To add more value and new social technologies to our project, on 25 February we held our First Meeting about Education for Ethnic-Race Relations, mediated by educational specialists and Viva a Vida consultants Mariana Barreto and Vanessa Lemos and held in the building of the Cordoaria Residents Association. The meeting was attended by the Viva a Vida team and board members, community leaders, a representative from the Department of Racial Equality, and representatives from other quilombos and funders.

We discussed strategies about how to develop and apply the ethnic-racial approach within formal education arenas, specifically focusing on quilombola children. The mediators discussed the history of education and racism in Brazil and encouraged participants to consider their own identity and self-image, relating this to their personal experiences of racism and other rights violations. Their empowering and sensitive approach led to a rich debate about the real impacts of racism and other violations, and how we will combat these using a Afro-centered approach in the Afroteca Muvuca.

Without your support, none of this enriching work would have been possible, so please accept our thanks and our huge appreciation of your generous donations!