Powering a new future

Também ficou admirado com as tradutoras de linguagem gestual no auditório grande? Perguntei-lhes porque estão aqui e se há diferença entre Língua Gestual Portuguesa e outras línguas.

Anyone who has been in the large auditorium must have seen them: the interpretors of sign language. They had to sit on a well lit high chair, and their upper body was projected on the screen. Like the simultaneous translation for Portuguese, English and French, they were translating instantly. I asked Vera and Sara if there were any deaf people in the public, and to my surprise, they did not know. “Because of the screen, a deaf person doesn’t necessarily have to make contact with us.” In the video, i asked a couple more questions, in Portuguese. I first spoke to Vera, while Sara gestuated the translation, and then the other way around. This way, i figured, any deaf person can follow. But i now learned that sign language also comes in language variants.

The group SDM BQG has been entertaining us with rap singing. Their lyrics are in Portuguese and talk about the cruel world and cold hearts. But it all turns more positive towards the end. The chorus is an advise to all of us: I can’t change the world but …. I can change one person…

Estes jovens do grupo SDM BQG têm estado a animar os visitantes do evento com as suas canções rap. Os textos falam de uma mudança na maneira de pensar.

Escrevo com sentimento, e abro o coração, e faço ver a todos que tudo tem uma solução.
Vive cada dia e cada dia a aprender.
O mundo é cruel não te deixes perder. Caminhos sem brilho, consciências pesadas julgam tudo e todos. E o mundo de pernas viradas.
Caso não saibas, só tu podes mudar e teu coração frio e a maneira de pensar. … de pensar… de uma forma diferente. De pensar… e agir como gente. Se alguém do bem dá o teu primeiro passo. Ser igual ser diferente, bro -não é esse o caso. Nada muda e um só não faz diferença. Eu falo ao mundo inteiro e mudei a minha cabeça.

O fim é uma lembrança a todos nós: Posso não mudar o mundo… mas mudo uma pessoa…

The sibling conflict, with new small sister

-”Go change into something decent. Why are you wearing this mini-skirt, my sister should dress properly and not walk around in this stupid short skirt!” The young guy towers over his sister and acts threatening.

-”But all the girls wear the same… I think I can dress the way I like” the sister shouts back. Their conflict escalates and the brother hits the sister.

This is a small scene a group of youngsters from Vale da Amoreira showed. At this point Gisella steps forward in the group of young actors and asks -to actors, audience and everybody in general: “Now how could this have been solved differently?” After a few general suggestions an especially responsive person from the audience is invited to come forward. A huge lad now takes the necklace of the girl and takes over the role of Michaela. The scene starts with the girls dancing, the brother comes up to them and starts again: Go change into something decent!… Only this time he is talking to a man his own size. The new actor tries to stand up for his right to wear what s/he chooses, but to prevent conflict.

The Grupo de Teatro Fórum do Vale de Amoreira is demonstrating the way Forum Theatre works.. by doing it. Forum theatre is a way to both work with groups of actors, engage them in something which will give them self-esteem AND reach out to others by doing it, in the schools, in the neighbourhoods.

Afterwards I meet some of the actors. They are between 15 and 34 years old, and meet twice a week to practise. They think of their themes themselves, and do not use any written scripts. In the videos they talk about themselves. The videos are in Portuguese.

We were welcomed to the Powering a New Future event in Lisbon by a couple of puppets … and I met up with them later in the day. After a little explanation of EQUAL we talked to some other animateurs: sleeping under cardboard. Would they like a bed from the puppets? No, but food would be welcome.

Nikos Ghionakis presented a project about helping people who have suffered mental illness find work and live in the community. In the audience was Kiki Staikou, from the Ministry of Labour, who recommended the project for the event. When I spoke to Kiki and Nikos afterwards they explained that it took the trip to Lisbon for Kiki to fully understand how the project started - driven by a desire to tackle real problems.