After breakfast this morning Lee led us in devotions. We had free time until 10 to gather things, read emails, rest, etc. At ten we met to plan and make posters for our participation in the march for stopping violence against women and children this afternoon. We brainstormed phrases to use and then Rosangela translated them into Portuguese for us. Each of us printed at least one poster with the colored markers, adding the symbol of a hand with a heart inside if we wanted. Our next task was to go over how to present our skit on violence prevention. We brainstormed the best ways of acting out the roles in a skit that Rosa has used with success in the US, both performing for young people and adults. We need to be able to do the skit with Rosangela reading what is happening in Portuguese.
For lunch today we ate in the huge shopping mall at a weigh-your-plate restaurant in the food court. When we finished several of us walked to “Extra,” the Brazilian equivalent of Wal Mart (we did see a “real” Wal Mart in Sao Paulo, however!)We found some postcards and made a few other purchases. Some of us have been looking for postcards for some days. Amazing we hadn’t found many at all.
Now we are at Diaconia, a non-governmental organization with eleven church members. Diakonia works on many types of projects to help the various communities of Fortaleza: home, environment, health, education, economics and prevention of violence. They have formed a youth group specifically to share information with other youth especially about violence against women and children. It is their youth group with whom we will be marching later today and their youth group that is performing a skit for us as well (see the previous posting in the blog about their play and rap).
A representative of Rede Aquarela, a governmental organization combatting violence against women and children, then spoke about their work. The government is very involved in reducing the impact of violence and sexual assault in Fortaleza. They gather statistics and compile information tracking when the highest level of crimes occurs, where they occur most frequently and how they can best combat the problems. They visit homes and provide social and psychological services for parents and victims. They want to learn more about trafficking of women; want to learn from each other how best to combat trafficking. Most abuse is in the home, not from trafficking. There are primarily three types of sexual abuse: exploitation to make money,
We did our play, pantomiming the following roles while Rosangela narrated in Portuguese: a victim of sexual abuse, a social worker, law enforcement officer, health care and an advocate. Everyone rose to the occasion and the skit was a great success!
The youth did their play and rap after handing each of us a summary of the story and a copy of the songs all in English. How wonderful of them to think of us this way. You can find the story and words and pictures in a separate post on this blog.
We adjourned for light snacks before we march. We gathered all our posters and headed outside to organize for the march. We had six percussionists playing various drums and giving us great rhythm to our walk—as well as drawing everyone’s attention, both on the streets and in their cars. We also had a clown and several young people dressed in very colorful costumes, including on stilt walker. Several young people also carried a banner telling more about our purpose in marching. Along came our group and the Methodist women accompanying us as well as representatives of Diaconia and Rede Aquarela. It was fun! We all had fliers to hand out and the young people were the best at it, giving them to people walking on the street, passing by in cars. We marched down the side street and then spent quite a bit of time in the median strip of a major intersection where we were able to draw special attention to our cause when the traffic signal allowed. It was time for people to be going home after work so we had a pretty good “audience.” Several times during our march we were reminded of the importance and immediacy of this work. One of those was the little woman with the teenage girl and young boy who stayed with us for a while. We gave her a flyer and she held onto it, reading it. There were signs of homelessness and substance abuse and our hearts went out to her.
We remembered the words our host spoke to us earlier in the afternoon: “Thank you for coming. We are very happy to know we are not along in this struggle.”
We left Diaconia with high spirits. Like yesterday visiting all the churches and helping with the services it felt good to be involved in some “action” after all the information gathering and sharing we have been doing. We stopped at Dom Pastel to try these typical filled savory pastries. We topped it off with ice cream—choosing from 40 flavors at a popular shop around the corner. We chose our flavor and ate it in the waffle-cone bowl, sitting around on the benches and chatting, a satisfying ending to a busy day.
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