Fundraising

Shine a Light teaches digital arts to marginalized children around Latin America, so that they can be agents of change in their world. Inspired by this video,full of clips from movies made by kids from favelas, street kids, and ex-child soldiers, we hope that you will support our work. To donate, please click here.

Santo Amaro não só tem ladrão

A Casa Cai

A Casa Cai é outro vídeo-clip criado para publicar os conhecimentos da Cartografia mídia não tradicional.  Conta a história de como passa a vida de muitos meninos que entram na vida de tráfico.

El fin del "Niño de la Calle"

La Revista Regiones, de México, acaba de publicar un número muy interesante sobre la infancia de calle, con una contribución excelente por Marcos Urcola sobre la historia del concepto, y un artículo mío sobre cómo y por qué hay menos niños y niñas que viven en la calle ahora, que hace 20 años.

http://www.suplementoregiones.com/pdf/Regiones46.pdf

Kuna Yala

I just got back from a week filming with children in Kuna Yala, the semi-autonomous state where the Kuna Indians have preserved their culture amazingly well for the last century.  The kids made some extraordinary films, from documentaries about shamanism and Kuna history to a well acted interpretation of one of the Kunas' favorite myths, a kind of "Just-so story" about why the heron always calls out "ga, ga, ga" as it takes off.  Watching one boy walk through the water on the beach immittating a heron was simply priceless.

It's going to take me months to digest what I learned on the islands, but here, at least, I can post a couple of photos, take by Agata Surma, the woman who has been essential in organizing the new work with art for Kuna kids in the city and on the islands.

Prometheus is a lizard

Many cultures have a Prometheus myth, trying to answer the question of how humans came to possess fire.  Among the Kunas, the story is rather less tragic, and much more fun for kids.  Yesterday, we helped a group of kids in Koskuna to make a short movie where they interpreted the story: it goes something like this:

Many years ago, when there wasn't as much of a difference between human beings and animals, and they could talk to one another, the humans were cold and hungry.  The only being who had fire was the jaguar, who lived on the other side of the river and who would never give the warmth to anyone else.  In the midst of the shivering people, a young woman had an idea: "The iskar can help us," she said, and ran to seek his help.  [The English translation of iskar is the "Jesus Christ Lizard," because it can run over the surface of the water, but I'm calling it by its Kuna name so avoid the theological connotations of the "Jesus Christ Lizard].

The iskar didn't want to help: "I'm small and the jaguar is big," it said.

"But you are smarter," said the young woman.

"It will catch me."

"But you are so fast."

Finally and fearfully, the iskar decided to go; he went to the river and tried to cross, but it was too wide; he caught a branch and rode it across the water, and the snuck slowly to where the jaguar was sleeping, by the side of the fire.  The fire was too strong to get close, so the iskar urinated on it to make it weaker... but the lack of heat woke the jaguar.

"Who messed with my fire?" it roared, and lunged for the iskar.

"It's the rain, sir, the rain.  But I can help you to make it strong again."  And the iskar taught the jaguar how to blow on the fire to make it strong again.  The jaguar blew and blew, and when the fire was strong again, he slept by its side again.

The iskar grabbed one of the brands from the fire, put it on his tail, and ran to escape the jaguar.  It was so frightened that it ran and ran it wasn't even aware that it was running over the water.  It threw the fire on the place where the humans had prepared, and they thanked him with applause.  So the humans had food and warmth, and they always cheer when they see the iskar run across the water.

Panamá

Though the Kuna Indians have dealt with modernity better than most indigenous groups in Latin America, maintiaing their language and culture, and even creating a semi-sovereign country for themselves, there are now more than 40,000 Kunas living in Panamá City, facing poverty, discrimination, and the loss of their culture.  Over the last several years, we have been working with a Kuna artist in Panamá City, José Colman, to develop an arts program for children from the slum of Koskuna, north of the city on what used to be the US Air Force base.  Day before yesterday, I got to Panamá to help them make some movies about their lives.

It was amazing to walk through Koskuna yesterday, comparing it to the stories and photos I'd seen from two years ago, when the project started.  The place is poor, as one might expect, but very clean and well cared for; men were even cleaning out the open sewers that the city government refuses to fix.  There are murals all over, mixing graffiti with Kuna art.  (You can see some of the art here)  The leader of the community congress is an excited young man, and as we walked through the neighborhood, he saw issue after issue to fix, to work on, to change.

Rey, the community leader, told me that much of the change had to do with José and the young international volunteers he brought in.  "We see that we can do things to change this place.  We have more hope that we did before."  He probably overstated the case: it's also important that young men now have lots of work in the booming construction industry, that there is now direct transport from Koskuna to the city... but it still makes me proud.

More posts on the project coming up...

Cartography of the Favela

Shine a Light has completed the book that resulted for our research for Cartography of the Favela: Community Resources to resist violence in Recife and Olinda.  It is free for download here, in a book-quality .pdf.  Please be aware that it is a big file, and will take some time to download.

Decade-Long Evaluation

Over the last six months, Shine a Light has engaged in an exhaustive evaluation of our work over the last decade, with some surprising and very positive results: 63% of the kids and teenagers we have worked with have become leaders in their communities, for instance, and 38% have gone on to higher education.



The complete evaluation is available at http://www.shinealight.org/Texts/Evaluation2011.pdf

Project 1925

The Kuna Indians have one of the strongest indigenous communities in Latin America, but as they have moved to the Panamá City, they have lost many of the resources that made their culture strong. For the last two years, a Kuna artist, José Angel Colman, has been working with Shine a Light to create an arts program where urban Kuna kids re-create their culture in the city.

Several other committed people have been working in the same communities, and have developed a blog that shows the way that the arts can have an impact on the lives of truly marginalized children.  The photos they have included of their work are inspirational.

http://proyectokoskunaveracruz.blogspot.com/

Return to the City of Rhyme

In a promotional clip for SAL's new documentary, Detefon tells a little about how his art has grown in the last five years and what he has learned.  You can support the movie at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2108450757/return-to-the-city-of-rhyme

Nuevo Video de Abenin

Un nuevo video sobre infancia y guerra de la ONG Abenin, con sedes en España y Colombia.

Evaluation, Paraguay

This year, Shine a Light is doing an extensive evaluation of the successes and failures of our work over the last decade, so I have been interviewing many of the children and teenagers we have taught to make music and video, as well as with the organizations that serve them.  I'll be posting a couple of updates on this process, starting with an interview yesterday with several people who work in the Paraguayan national government.

In 2008 and 2009, we worked with advisors to the new Paraguayan president, Fernando Lugo, on developing new strategies and policies for work with marginalized children, and then helped to create a film school for street kids and indigenous kids.  The consequences have been fantastic:

• Thanks to a proposal we developed with child leaders in 2008, there is now a 2500 member children's national assembly which proposes policy and evaluates and audits national policy.
• Our suggestion to emphasize the arts in work with marginalized children has resulted in the creation of music, theater, and visual arts programs serving 13,000 kids
• Though the film school itself never gained enough funding to be permanent, local filmmakers inspired by the project have worked with the government and a dozen NGOs to train kids as filmmakers and actors.
• This week, several street kids from Paraguay traveled to Berlin to present their film, Calle Última, at the Berlin Film Festival, a stunning honor.

I'll continue to update the results of our evaluation (not all of which will be so glowing, I trust) as they come in.

Observatorio de la Infancia, Venezuela

La tragedia de la infancia en Venezuela no está llegando a los medios de comunicación internacionales, pero hay niveles espantosos de violencia en el país.  Un recurso esencial para entender el problema es El Observatorio de la Infancia y Juventud en Caracas: http://observatoriodeinfanciayjuventud.blogspot.com/

Performing Life

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John Connell poses with his juggling students at a park in Cochabamba, a city of 600,000 in central Bolivia. He arrived in the country as a teenager to visit his girlfriend, who had been an exchange student at his high school. Children in his program are required to attend school.

Jocelyn Wiener

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A good story in the Christian Science Monitor on Performing Life, a small organization in Bolivia with which Shine a Light has worked several times.  Read it here.

Teatro de Guerra, Cinema de Paz

Teatro de Guerra, Cinema de Paz, el libro de Shine a Light sobre el trabajo de hacer una película de ficción con adolescentes ex-soldados en Colombia, está disponible en http://www.shinealight.org/Texts/TeatrodeGuerra.pdf, gracias a la traducción de María Cruz Martín Saiz, Claudia Solanes Roca-Sastre, Sandra González Martínez, Magdalena Pérez, y Itxaso Domínguez.  Un agradecimiento especial a Itxaso Domínguez por su revisión cuidadosa de todo el texto.

Saberes de los educadores de calle

Educar en las calles de América Latina:

Palabras de profesionales

Agathe de Chassey Traducido por Luisa Bonilla

New Shine a Light Promotional Video (English)

Vídeo Promocional de Shine a Light

Cafe Dez Artz Brings New Flavor to Swissvale

A young girl’s gentle smile is seen through a few long-armed branches, exuding innocence and joy.

But the photograph of Jenny Paula isn’t just any depiction of a child’s walk through the woods south of Borgota in Latin America.

Paula once fought as a child soldier.

One of several pieces included in “Looking Up, Looking Out, Looking In: Photographs by Children on the Margins,” Café Dez Artz in Swissvale held an opening event Sunday showing the work of street children who have taken photographs of their own friends and environment through a program with the Shine A Light initiative.

You can read the complete article here.

New Book on Street Kids

Several years ago, Shine a Light supported the investigation of a young French researcher, Agathe de Chassey, who traveled through Mexico and Central America to document the knowledge of street educators in the region.  Her work has just been published as a book in France, "Éduquer dans la rue en Amérique latine, paroles de professionnels."

La historia atrás de En Busca de la Vida

Este documental, hecho en colaboración con los actores y educadores de Compa-Trono, cuenta la historia de la última década en Bolivia, para poder entender el contexto social de la telenovela "En Busca de la Vida."

This documentary, made in collaboration with the actors and educators at Compa-Trono, tells the story of the last decade in Bolivia and how it informs the soap opera "Looking for Life."

The making of "Looking for Life"

English subtitles are now available for the documentary which shows how 15 Aymara teenagers made the "Looking for Life" telenovela (soap opera) now showing on Bolivian television.