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Aliança |
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The group was formed in 1996 following a call by Beth Grimberg and Hamilton Faria from Pólis Institute. At the time, we made a number of meetings with people, institutions and members of social movements. Some stayed and we created what we called institutions, people and actions in Alliance (namely, Beth, Hamilton and other people from Pólis, Moema Viezzer, from Rede Mulher de Educação , Rachel Trajber from Ecoar Institute, Isis de Palma from Cives and Imagens Educação, Marisa Greeb from Role Playing, and José Domingos Vasconcelos, a teacher). In 1997 we decided in Alliance, on behalf of São Paulo Group, to organize the World meeting in Brazil which was carried out in partnership with Sesc SP at Sesc Bertioga and Pompéia in December 1997 with more than 130 participants representing 63 countries. Soon after that, the Youth Network was formed having Soraia Mello and Eduardo Roumbauer as organizers and many others came and went. Presently, the members of the São Paulo Group in Alliance are: Pólis Institute, The World Artists in Alliance, The Ágora Institute in Defense of Voter and Democracy, the NGO Shalom Salam Paz, the movement Ethics is Citizenship – City Psychodrama, the Ecoar Institute, Fersol, Imagens Educação and the Drums for Peace.
Street Talks – The City We Want
It is a meeting that takes place in the streets and in the squares aiming to engage people in expressing themselves through a variety of languages: verbal expression, music and poetry, to bring back street talks about the local space and how to make it better, more human and more agreeable to live in. They have been carried out mainly by the Alliance’s São Paulo Group, more exactly the institutes Pólis and Ágora, but they have been growing and getting new members. We meet regularly in a square somewhere in the city to trigger an informal talk about the city, the square – the local and the global, but always in a very informal way by taking something to eat and drink, a kind of picnic, where we invite the passers-by to join us and start to chat. The talks also aim to carry some kind of artistic and political activity with music, poetry, mamulengos puppets, or drums and gathering.
In 2000, during the Brazilian municipal elections, we carried out two talks in the city downtown. One took place in front of the Municipal Theatre - in Praça Ramos –one of the busiest places of the city and another in front of the Local Chamber where a symbolic anti-corruption wash was made with artistic activities, forró and loads of cleansing products and banners with slogans from Ethics is Citizenship Movement – City Psychodrama, which was being born. The two meetings downtown were organized by a forum of entities pro-ethics in politics, a sound-equipped van, a professional entertainer, music playing and mamulengos puppets by Waldec from Garanhuns. A banner written ‘Alliance for a Plural, Responsible and United World’ was standing throughout the event. These meetings preceded the 2000 local elections in Brazil and received attention from the press and also TV coverage.
The other meetings since November 2000 were carried out monthly in the square opposite the Local Court building in Vila Madalena –SP. A number of 7 talks was set always underneath a banner with the words Street Talks – The City We Want and an Alliance’s banner. We started with a picnic, attracting people who approached the banner to ask, ‘Talk about what?’ ‘What time does it start?’ and the event began.... People asked about what the Alliance is and we replied, making sure the next month meeting was guaranteed. In 2001 the meetings grew in number, we spoke about Drums for Peace. The young percussionists band Tambores de Itapecerica da Serra came to join us, arriving on a city-hall bus; also students and teachers from the public school located in front of the square took part in the City Psychodrama on 21st March 2001.
In 2002, during the inauguration of the World Peace Square in São Paulo we joined Street Talks with the City Psychodramas, which have been happening in squares (São Paulo city hall’s request made by the mayor Marta to Marisa Greeb).
In 2003 the street talks took place in Porto Alegre on 26 January in an activity called Sunday Street during the World Social Forum in 7 squares and parks in the city at the same time. The aim of these meetings is that they spread out in the cities, so that people recover the habit of talking in the streets about their city and take hold of it, recovering the sense of belonging.
This event happened on 21 March in 150 spots in the city at the same time and it has been recovered by many psychodrama-makers in many countries around the world. In many of theses places, the movement was carried on and in some occasions we get together – City Psychodrama and street Talks in Alliance – to develop a Culture of Peace, joining the Drums action, since the results from the psychodrama general group queries about the majority’s main wish is Peace. Brazil’s region is not an armed conflict zone, we don’t have an open war on course in our day-to-day life as it happens in the Middle East and some African regions, but the desired peace is the urban peace, quotidian, casting away the fear and alarm we experience daily in a city like São Paulo. We have to go on developing “in Alliance” (NGOs, citizens, local governments and progressive people) a permanent and integrated project towards a culture of peace, through arts, citizenship, social inclusion and the widening of political participation mechanisms.
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