In the summer of 2007 I went to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil participating in a course on Human Rights and Media. Over the course of 4 weeks we met with countless NGOs, as well as community leaders in different favelas across the city. Most of them worked with young people teaching them how to use the arts, especially video and photography to empower them by telling their stories to the world, and to get them off the streets.
The video I am posting this week is about Porto BR, which is a project in a favela in Bangu that is run by the NGO IBISS. This particular group uses music and soccer to get youngsters off the street and out of the drug trafficking business. Listening to their percussions and playing soccer with the children afterwards, was probably the most powerful moment for me during that time.
I remember one moment particularly when the sun was setting and it was getting too late for us to stay any longer. A small group of us had stayed behind because my good friend Amit had damaged his knee very badly during the soccer game and we were trying to figure out how to transport him back to the car. We were facing a hill on which lamps had been placed in the shape of a heart. One of the boys came up to me and said in Portuguese: “God really does exist.”
As I was told later, IBISS had asked the police to stay out of the area during our visit to avoid any kind of conflict between them and the drug lords. It is still hard for me put into words what this conversation means to me and I am not going to analyze it for you, because I think the situation and the given context speaks for itself.
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