Firstly, thanks to all of you who have emailed me with great advice on what we can do to get Casa da Criança back up and running. Hopefully I will be having a meeting with Janaina and Bueno Sensei tomorrow to talk about it further and to discuss what we can do, as Australian volunteers.
I've just found out what is needed to run Casa da Criança and I thought I'd share because it blew my mind. This is a list of the groceries needed to run the centre for one month, as compiled by Janaina:
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Food: |
Hygene products: Cleaning products: |
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I just got some bad news...Casa da Criança is closing.
The facts are these:
a> They are a poor community supporting and running a service to a poor community, with no professional help
b> Private donations have dried up - they have no money to feed the kids any longer
c> Janaina, who runs the centre, works full time and was only getting paid R$300/month - that's about AU$200. She has been working for free for the past 3 months.
I'm not trying to sell you a sob story, but I can see that this place is really making a difference to the lives of 60 children and I am hoping someone can give me some good advice on how the problem can be fixed.
Janaina, Bueno Sensei and Saulo Sensei recently attended a management course for NGO type work and were working on a plan to make the centre self-sustainable, but none of them are professionals in this area. Sensei Bueno estimates they need about R$4000/month (AU$2500) to keep the place going, and a business plan obviously so that this doesn't happen again.
If you have ANY suggestions or advice, please leave a comment below or email me directly gabrielle.paynter@gmail.com
thanks,
Gabby
Daniel has arrived and indirectly we are seeing Brasil again with fresh eyes. Now we're not just the Australian couple, we're the Three Gringo Amigos :) I would like to say that he's having a fantastic time but the truth is he's in bed right now, sick as a dog. Ah that fresh Paulistano air....
Had a meeting with Bueno Sensei tonight about creating a website for Aikido Harmonia - emcompassing the dojo, the NGO social projects and the aikido corporate work. I'm excited about having something new to work on, a contribution that will last for longer than my stay in Brasil.
Loving my Wednesday morning class. I have a small but dedicated group coming along and we just finished learning the first Yuishinkai jo kata this week. Keeping the theme to weapons.
Things are moving along at Casa da Criança. Paul and I have been giving the kids a one hour English class each week. We try to incorporate games and songs, keep it interesting (keep them interested!!). Janiena, the "mother" of Casa da Criança says that it is difficult for them to learn english because they don't have a good base in Portuguese to work from. The public schools in Brasil are, apparently, terrible. Interestingly, the public universities are the best, and free. Of course the kids from public schools have buckleys chance of getting into them because they haven't had a decent education. So, learning english one a week for 5 months may not make any difference to these kids, but...Maybe one kid, one day, will get an opportunity that'll involve learning english and those 5 months might just make them feel a little more comfortable about it. More like exposure to a language than learning a language.
Gabby
This weekend we celebrated Aikido Harmonia Dojo's 13th birthday!
As tradition dictates, the morning was spent thoroughly cleaning the dojo. Paul and I took advantage of the time to improve the Volunteer room. The whole place looks (and smells) great.
Late afternoon we had a special aikido class with some special guests. A bonus for me was that the three nidans present (me included) were asked to teach a couple of techniques each.
Afterwards everyone crowded around a large box of photos (actually it was more like a crate!) that had been collected for the past 13yrs, reminisced and then of course there was food, drinks, music and dancing . A good night.
More photos here
Gabby
We were invited to accompany Bueno Sensei on his tri-annual visit to Recife in the north of Brazil to visit dojos, kids, do an aikido demonstration and, of course, to see some more of Brasil.
From the plane Recife (of Pernambuco state) looks like the Gold Coast - highrises on the beach, palms, canals and bridges. It even felt like home as we walked out into the Queensland-like humidity. But fortunately that's where the similarities to the Gold Coast end. Recife is culture-rich, being one of the first places to be settled by the Portuguese. Poverty meets luxury in even closer proximity than here in Pinheiros - favelas line the base of luxury apartments or are neighbours to large shopping malls. The beaches are beautiful, even in the high-rise areas, but are bull-shark infested in many areas so you can't swim or surf.
The people we met in Recife were ultra-nice and the hospitality we recieved was amazing. First day we dropped in on the "Instituto nossa Senhora de Fatima", a convent running a similar program for favela kids as Casa de Criança. The aikido class at the convent is run by Paulo, our kind host and a sensei in Recife. I was interested to see that the kamiza was the famous pic of O'Sensei sitting cross-legged pointing up....to a shrine with small statues of Jesus and Mary. Aiki-catholicism.
That night we were taken to a dojo thinking it would be an ordinary training session and walked in to see 40 or so people on the mat! The students were from three Kawai-affiliated dojos of Senseis Paulo, Mario and Wilson, otherwise known as the Three Stoogies (self-named). We were treated like guest Sensei for the rest of the stay there which was a strange new experience for both of us and I was asked to teach a technique. Bueno Sensei talked for a while at the end of the class and mentioned that we were from Aikido Yuishinkai and afterwards a girl in hakama came up to me and said "You are from Yuishinkai?? Do you know Michael Williams with the beautiful flowing aikido??" It turns out her friend Circe trained with Andrew Sunter in Sydney and brought back the syllabus DVD to Recife with her.
The next day we went to a T'ai Chi demonstration day and did an aikido demo which I think went down quite well. In the afternoon, 15 of us headed out to Mario's beach house, 2hrs south in a paradise called Maragoji. The morning was bright and the water was sooo warm and clear. I was ready to throw away our trip to Salvador just to spend a few more days there.
Back in Recife we went to a kids class at the convent. The kids were excited to see Bueno Sensei again and because we were with him, they seemed happy to welcome us with a hug. 4 of the girls did a dance performance for us at the end and I still have that song stuck in my head! That night we had another class with gradings and a dinner after. Really nice people. I left my black belt there accidently which I think I will ask to be given to the first woman who grades to shodan. Really nice people.
Next day we flew to Salvador, Bahia, the oldest city in Brasil, and home of Capoeira.It was really beautiful - I can see now why people go to Europe to see those old cities. We hooked up with a friend of Bueno's, Renato, another aikido Sensei with a sense of humour. We did a fair bit of sightseeing and on the last night were taken to a capoeira dojo by Renato and his friend, an off-duty cop. Strange to be hanging out with someone carrying a gun and in, as it turns out, a really dangerous neighbourhood. We have visited a few places now that other tourists wouldn't come out of unscathed. The teacher was Mestre Falcão, big and very tough-looking but really friendly. The capoeira was great, more of a demonstration than a class and we got pulled up at the end to play at the end - and I have the embarrasing video to prove it.
For more photos of Recife please click here
For more photos of Salvador please click here
