(I wrote this reflection about Saturday, June 14th, but it has taken me a few days to get to internet so that I could upload it.)
After leaving Kaka’s we headed to the city of Santos. This is the winter season so there are not many people around. We got here on the Brazilian Valentine’s Day (which is in June because commercial sales tend to dip during that month instead of dipping in February like in the US) so as we walked along the beach there were many couples cuddling along the boardwalk.
In the morning we were met by our guides for the day, Natasha and Val. They are both part of a group called Elos which is the Portugues word for links. While we were still in Sao Paulo we had seen a video about the work of Elos and particularly their project “Guerreiros Sem Armas” which means “Warriors without Weapons.” The organization was started by a group of architecture students who felt that there was more to community development than just constructing buildings. A group of them began by meeting around the city in “unlikely” locations like some of the economically poor neighborhoods where people were in need of housing and other community structures like cultural centers, daycares, etc.
As they continued to meet more people from various communities it began to change their concept of what they needed to do as architects. They began to see their role as helping communities that most of us would see as “in need of help” to realize that they had the power not only to decide what they needed but to actual create powerful places using the material and human resources that they already have. They also recognized that they needed to help others, those of us who would call ourselves activists, change agents, social workers, etc. to realize that it is our job not to do things “for” the community but to work with the community and to do so in such a way that it transforms our beliefs and actions and ignites a spark in the community that we are working with.
We saw the power of this work directly and I will continue to unpack that throughout the rest of my blog, but I want to focus on one major lesson that I took away from my visit. The Warriors Without Weapons project was started for other architecture students and now is open to young people around the world who are committed to changing their communities. In Brazil they are often called social entrepreneurs. (At some other time I want to really unpack that phrase because there is a real need to reflect on the way that is used in the United States – but I digress.) The youth from the program spend one month going through a 4 step process which I think translates best as - Seeing, Relationship, Dream, Action. I could unpack each of those and may down the line, but I will say that these emphases were developed with Kaka as one of the spiritual guides for this project.
The first challenge for the Warriors is to go out into the communities and find something that they find truly beautiful. The Warriors are sent into favelas where people are living above sewage water where houses may not have running water and where all the buildings have been constructed with whatever people could find. Places where some people go to bed hungry and drug dealing becomes an only source of income for some and an only source of escape for others. These are places that if I showed you a photo of even what I saw I know that it would bring sadness to your mind that might lead you to turn down your plate or collect some clothes to give a way. It is in this place such as that that the Warriors must find something truly beautiful. And like many of us they struggle to find the beauty. Val shared one particular story that shed light on the power of this practice.
One young warrior was sent to a favela community and he came back saying that he could not find anything beautiful. He was told that he should go back and continue to search. After hours of seeing all of the challenges and all of the needs he happened upon a clothesline that caught his eye. All of the clothes were hung up starting with white and then going down the spectrum of the rainbow – yellow clothes flowing into orange clothes into red clothes into purple. Not only was it visually stunning, but he knew that someone was taking the time to do this and it was a sign that their soul still was creating beauty even in a place that would not be considered “worth the effort” by many of us.
After finding this place, the young man was told he needed to figure out what human hands are involved in creating, maintaining or protecting this beauty. They must find the person and come to know them and understand their motivation for creating beauty. In the case of this young man he had to knock on the door of the house which the clothesline belonged to. A woman answered the door and at first she told him that there was no reason that she hung the clothes out there. When it became clear that he really wanted to know she invited him into her house and shared her story. The woman had grown up in the Northeast region of Brazil in a part of the country that is really dry. Everyone waited for the rain and her mother always told her that when the rain came that when it was done that she would see a rainbow, so as a child she would always look for the rainbow. This was a story that she had never shared because no one had ever taken the time to ask her. Once the two of them shared this story they also had a relationship with depth.
Val shared that when people arrive to their program there are always people that say – Why are we doing these exercises and spending only one week building. If we dropped some of these tasks we could build for four weeks and get more done. However, she said that after doing the “Seeing” exercises, the Warriors have a totally different view of the neighborhood and more true relationships with residents.
After leaving Kaka’s we headed to the city of Santos. This is the winter season so there are not many people around. We got here on the Brazilian Valentine’s Day (which is in June because commercial sales tend to dip during that month instead of dipping in February like in the US) so as we walked along the beach there were many couples cuddling along the boardwalk.
In the morning we were met by our guides for the day, Natasha and Val. They are both part of a group called Elos which is the Portugues word for links. While we were still in Sao Paulo we had seen a video about the work of Elos and particularly their project “Guerreiros Sem Armas” which means “Warriors without Weapons.” The organization was started by a group of architecture students who felt that there was more to community development than just constructing buildings. A group of them began by meeting around the city in “unlikely” locations like some of the economically poor neighborhoods where people were in need of housing and other community structures like cultural centers, daycares, etc.As they continued to meet more people from various communities it began to change their concept of what they needed to do as architects. They began to see their role as helping communities that most of us would see as “in need of help” to realize that they had the power not only to decide what they needed but to actual create powerful places using the material and human resources that they already have. They also recognized that they needed to help others, those of us who would call ourselves activists, change agents, social workers, etc. to realize that it is our job not to do things “for” the community but to work with the community and to do so in such a way that it transforms our beliefs and actions and ignites a spark in the community that we are working with.
We saw the power of this work directly and I will continue to unpack that throughout the rest of my blog, but I want to focus on one major lesson that I took away from my visit. The Warriors Without Weapons project was started for other architecture students and now is open to young people around the world who are committed to changing their communities. In Brazil they are often called social entrepreneurs. (At some other time I want to really unpack that phrase because there is a real need to reflect on the way that is used in the United States – but I digress.) The youth from the program spend one month going through a 4 step process which I think translates best as - Seeing, Relationship, Dream, Action. I could unpack each of those and may down the line, but I will say that these emphases were developed with Kaka as one of the spiritual guides for this project.
The first challenge for the Warriors is to go out into the communities and find something that they find truly beautiful. The Warriors are sent into favelas where people are living above sewage water where houses may not have running water and where all the buildings have been constructed with whatever people could find. Places where some people go to bed hungry and drug dealing becomes an only source of income for some and an only source of escape for others. These are places that if I showed you a photo of even what I saw I know that it would bring sadness to your mind that might lead you to turn down your plate or collect some clothes to give a way. It is in this place such as that that the Warriors must find something truly beautiful. And like many of us they struggle to find the beauty. Val shared one particular story that shed light on the power of this practice.
One young warrior was sent to a favela community and he came back saying that he could not find anything beautiful. He was told that he should go back and continue to search. After hours of seeing all of the challenges and all of the needs he happened upon a clothesline that caught his eye. All of the clothes were hung up starting with white and then going down the spectrum of the rainbow – yellow clothes flowing into orange clothes into red clothes into purple. Not only was it visually stunning, but he knew that someone was taking the time to do this and it was a sign that their soul still was creating beauty even in a place that would not be considered “worth the effort” by many of us.
After finding this place, the young man was told he needed to figure out what human hands are involved in creating, maintaining or protecting this beauty. They must find the person and come to know them and understand their motivation for creating beauty. In the case of this young man he had to knock on the door of the house which the clothesline belonged to. A woman answered the door and at first she told him that there was no reason that she hung the clothes out there. When it became clear that he really wanted to know she invited him into her house and shared her story. The woman had grown up in the Northeast region of Brazil in a part of the country that is really dry. Everyone waited for the rain and her mother always told her that when the rain came that when it was done that she would see a rainbow, so as a child she would always look for the rainbow. This was a story that she had never shared because no one had ever taken the time to ask her. Once the two of them shared this story they also had a relationship with depth.
Val shared that when people arrive to their program there are always people that say – Why are we doing these exercises and spending only one week building. If we dropped some of these tasks we could build for four weeks and get more done. However, she said that after doing the “Seeing” exercises, the Warriors have a totally different view of the neighborhood and more true relationships with residents.
How often do I miss the rainbow because I am so focused on the “negative impacts” of the rain?
When have I missed an opportunity to search for the person behind the rainbow and get to know who (s)he really is?
Am I willing to create, maintain or protect beauty in the most “unlikely” of places?
Am I willing to create, maintain or protect beauty in the most “unlikely” of places?
This picture was done by the residents of one of the communities in which Elos works and it sums it up. It says "Live your life with a way for you to be happy!"
hmmm. my comment didn't show up.
ReplyDeletemy favorite Kweli line is "we finding beauty in the hideous"
these experiences are adding up quite nicely. 80% is easy, right?
Beautiful == One correction on the translation -- I think it actually says "Live your life without fear of being happy," which is even more beautiful, I think. Beijos -
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