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“Dreams – Common Lives in Extraordinary Times” - Brazil, August/October 2007
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Brasília, 26 July 2007 – The beat of Batalá’s one hundred drums, a women only percussion group based in Brasília, will kick start this years’ Global Call for Action against Poverty (GCAP) campaign in Brazil, next August, 15.
The opening ceremony, with authorities, representatives of the coalition social movements, NGOs and international organizations, will be punctuated by Batala’s rhythm together with another local musician.
Gigantic photographs of women taken from the book of photos “Dreams – Common Lives in Extraordinary Times” will be projected on the external walls of the new National Library, as the ceremony unfolds in its gardens, giving a glimpse of the photo exhibition opening that will follow, together with a book’s launch later in the evening.
For a fortnight, this recent landmark of Brazil’s capital, at the heart of the city, will be at the centre of a series of cultural events to highlight the issue of women and poverty, discrimination and inequality, both locally and globally.
A brand new theatre inside the Library, will host a season of “Women and Inequality”, mixing documentaries and fiction from different continents. And debates with feminists, female politicians and activists will discuss issues ranging from the lack of political representation to reproductive rights of women.
Trade, Aid, Debt, Accountability… and Equality
The gender issue was included among GCAP’s priorities by insistence of the Latin American and Caribbean alliance. Of the 1,3 billion people living in extreme poverty 70% are women. Women also represent two thirds of the illiterate people in the world.
To press for women’s access to land, credit and equal payment, as well as reproductive rights and political representation, among other rights, is part of the challenge to eradicate poverty and key to its achievement.
Up to now, no country in the world has achieved full equality. According to the Gender Equality Index, monitored by Social Watch, in 2006 the highest rated country was Sweden, scoring 89 out of a 100.
Although not only a South issue, gender imbalances are more visible in less developed countries and heavier for poor women. In Brazil, women income represents 43% of men’s.
Brazilian flavour
The events will be taken to Fortaleza, in the northeast of Brazil, in October, to coincide with the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.
And although it will also use the “Stand Up and Speak Out” motto, the theme is Women and Emancipation and the trademark is the mix of cultural events and political discussion.
“One of the biggest challenges for social NGOs is to communicate with other sectors, to go beyond the barrier of the social movement”, believes Iara Pietricovsky, one of GCAP’s coordinators in Brazil and a member of the management board of INESC (National Institute of Socioeconomic Studies).
The Brazilian recipe to raise awareness and to attract support beyond the coalition itself is to appeal to music, to art and culture to make people think about poverty.
Dreams and dreamers
One good example is the book portraying the dreams and the reality of women in different parts of the world, by British/Israeli photographer Carolina Benshemesh, and the photo exhibition that accompanies it.
Benshemesh spent a year travelling to Brazil, Cuba, Israel and the West Bank taking pictures of women, their sons and daughters and sometimes their partners.
She gave them disposable cameras to document and illustrate their dreams, loves and hates. Then she would interview them while taking their portraits, mostly at their own homes. “The effect is astonishing: an intensely moving collage of lives, intimate and immediate,” sums up the editor of Benshemesh previous book, Linda Saunders.
“The book,” says Pietricovsky, “is deeply politic, without talking about politics”.
“Dreams...” is being printed in Portuguese, Spanish and English and it will also be part of the campaign in Lima (Peru), next November. Benshemesh donated the book to GCAP.
Invitation to think
The international film exhibition follows the same pattern. With films from as far apart as Iran, South Africa, Cameroon and Brazil, the main aim, according to curator, Valentina Homem, was to escape from educational and patronising movies. “I wanted the films to stand up for themselves, not just to fit into the inequality issue”, explains Homem.
The revenues from the book will revert to GCAP and all other activities are free and open to the public.
For more information:
Inesc
Cassuça Benevides
(61) 8181 5627/ (61) 3212-0224
SCS - Qd. 08 Bloco B-50 Salas 433/441
Edifício Venâncio 2.000
CEP 70.333-970
Brasília/DF - Brasil
55 61 3212-0224
