Meninadança

Please check out the website of Meninadança (Girl Dance) to read up on their vision and objectives, and get a better idea of who we're working with. This video should also give a good visual introduction, with an incredibly moving song that a Canadian singer called Dean Brody wrote after meeting one of the girls - Leilah.

In summary, Meninadança hopes to set up various projects along the vast BR116 motorway in Brazil, using dance especially to reach out to underage girls caught in prostitution and sexual exploitation. The huge motorways that cross the interior of Brazil are actually where most prostitution is to be found, and in a recent survey by the government, they found the worst highway of all to be the BR-116. Along its 2,700 miles there are 262 places where child prostitution was known to be taking place - the equivalent of one every ten miles.

Meninadança is focusing on the motorway communities where these girls live, aiming to set up safe-houses where girls can engage in dance and other activities to increase their self-esteem, and find new meaning, hope and purpose. Through community work with the girls and their families, Meninadança hopes to rescue many girls from a life of sexual exploitation and restore them to living out their full potential.
Read more about Meninadanca here.

Thoughts on leaving...

(Sam:) I can’t quite believe we’re finally going! and I’m actually really sad about leaving. We’ve had a long time back in Eltham now, and are even more aware of what we will be leaving behind. Family, friends and community in general are so important to us, and it is painful to be partially breaking some of those connections. Having spent more focused time over the last six months investing in the children and young people in the area also makes it pretty tough to leave.


I’ve worked with marginalised young people around the community since I was sixteen, and getting stuck in full-time for six months has convinced me again of the massive importance and urgency of people sacrificing time to invest in their lives, whatever our initials views and opinions may be. The work that Superkidz does is absolutely invaluable – through them there are children who are now growing up with purpose; there are young people rejected by every other institution who now experience unconditional love and acceptance for the first time in life; and for those workers who do patiently pursue them year in year out, there are amazing moments of progress and also huge personal transformation through challenging situations. I’ll be very sad to leave here and I hope and pray that many more people will give up time each week to be a small but powerfully different voice in their lives.

Wohoooooo!!

Wohoooooooo!!! We’re finally off!

While we committed to working for Superkidz and also our church (EGCC) for six months, ending this July, we have been waiting for paperwork from Meninadança. Since this has still not materialised, the director Matt Roper has advised us to come out on a tourist visa for six months to get stuck into the project while the documents are produced. A lawyer there has advised us the same, so we’re trusting things will be sorted during these six months and we’ve booked our flights for August 15th!
This actually works really well, since their plan is for us to spend up to six months in their hub project in Belo Horizonte before then moving to a smaller town Medina, where the organisation hopes to replicate the project. So we will finish our time in Belo, then pick up our visas in London next February, and move back out to Medina longer term.

Click here to see the map with larger font on the original website (Number 1 is Belo Horizonte and number 2 is Medina).

(Sam) Meninadança

Last year we got in touch with an English journalist called Matt Roper who has been working for years to combat under-age prostitution in Brazil. In July we went to a ´Brazilian dinner´ that he was running to raise awareness about the issue, and to present information about his new project/movement called Meninadança. We really liked the sound of his vision and strategy, and found that it had many similar threads to the direction we were going in. As well as a good structure and foundation for getting there! We remembered this when our Recife plans then fell through last week, and e-mailed Matt again to arrange to meet up, only to find out that in a few days time he was holding a day conference for Meninadança! And it was just ten minutes down the road from our house! 

For the few days leading up to the conference we were really excited about the possibilities, as we'd read both of Matt's books, and become more familiar with what he was doing over the last few years. We knew that he had a similar heart to ours, and couldn't wait to hear more about it. By the day of the conference we were fairly sure that we wanted to be involved in the project, and then the day simply confirmed our feelings, and gave us an even better picture of the work of Meninadanca! We came away extremely excited!!


It was awesome to see that the overall strategy is similar (yet more developed!) to our idea of working within the local poor communities where the girls come from, rather than just on the streets where the more obvious face of prostitution is found. You can read more about the charity on their website www.meninadanca.org 

We´ll include more about their vision and about the organisation in the next post, but suffice it to say – we really want to work with them! We chatted with Matt the following day (the day before he emigrated to Brazil with his wife and son!) and he seemed equally positive about us working with them, which was good news! We concluded that since he needed time to settle in and to sort out a structure for receiving a bigger team in Brazil, and since we wanted to have at least 6 months of life planned after such a long period of uncertainty (hopefully to work in our local community in London), then we would keep in touch over the next couple of months and aim to fly out in the summer!! Please pray for positive communications over the next few months!

(Sam) The Phone Call!

On Sunday 13th October we spoke at our church on Brazil plans, which was a bit classic, given the lack of certainty of how/when we were going to go! Here is the link if you want to listen - and please forgive the singing in the middle! http://www.egcc.co.uk/?p=1928


Since the difficult week before (see previous post!), we had been mulling over whether or not we really wanted to be linked with this church in Recife. If we were having so many problems with their leadership already, we wondered what it might be like a couple of years down the line, when the project really needed support and good leadership and communication? We were definitely erring on the side of closing the door on this partnership, unless there was a dramatic turnaround on their part in this next phone meeting...


The phone meeting... On Tuesday 15th October I spent three hours in the morning trying to 'let go'! of 18 months of investing in this specific partnership so that I would be ready to say no on the phone depending on how the conversation went. I called Brazil at the arranged time, but the head guy - Rubens - wasn't answering (which sadly wasn't unusual!) So I called the pastor of our church there and discovered that neither of them were at the planned phone meeting! Both had forgotten that it was a bank holiday when they arranged the date, and then had neglected to communicate this with us when they realised and cancelled the meeting. Although it sounds like one small mistake, this really was the final straw! After a year of stalling and lack of communication, and now especially after last week discovering a lack of integrity in terms of what they were communicating to us, we were not willing to wait any longer. It was very sad saying this to our pastor, since we did share a similar heart and vision but he has obviously been constrained by poor leadership above him. But we could see now that if we were to have gone, we would not just be working with him, but with the head man above him. So we had to say goodbye, and it felt very sad, and quite a bit like ending a relationship!! :(



That said, as we put the phone down we actually felt incredibly relieved! We really felt like we were escaping a partnership that would have been really hard work in the long term, and now have the possibility of working somewhere else in Brazil where it will be perhaps even more exciting and slightly easier-flowing...which in fact was what happened the very next weekend…!! See next post ;o)

(Sam) frustrations!!

Last Tuesday was a shocker! Although the communication from the church has been minimal, up to this point it has all been positive, and to the effect that the process is easy and that it’s just a question of them being busy and trying to get the right people in the right place etc. Then suddenly on Tuesday, I got through to the guy who leads our church (Ivo) and he told us that the head guy responsible for arranging the documents (Rubens) ‘has expressed some concerns’ about being legally responsible for us…

We were so frustrated!! The lack of communication didn’t seem like a positive start to a partnership, but we’d given them the benefit of the doubt that the process was well under-way, based on the few times we had communicated. I was able to express our frustrations, and finally he agreed to arrange a meeting with Rubens which we’ll have by phone tomorrow lunch (Tuesday 14th). Crunch time.

As we tried to process this news ourselves and work out what this means, we realised the beautiful irony that we were also supposed to be speaking on Sunday at church all about Brazil...genius timing! We spoke on trust and faith, which seemed like the most relevant topic, and was certainly the most raw and genuine at this moment.

As we take a step back to look at the situation, we are still holding onto our vision of working with young people involved in prostitution in Brazil, but now starting to look at other doors that might open. It will certainly be difficult to let go of all the specific location-based plans, and of friends and networks etc., (and especially our valiant Gus) but after this conversation and after a year of waiting, we are feeling our own concerns about working under such a leadership, and are actually relieved as we look at what other options are available.

Tomorrow – 1pm – is the decision time. We are going to hear their thoughts, and express our disappointment and frustration. Hopefully they will be able to offer an apology and then, if they decide they do want to go ahead, we’ll be asking for some visible action points on their part, and also be setting a couple of deadlines.  

We’ll see what the future holds tomorrow!

The Great Delay!

Claire: 
We are still going to Brazil! The delay is to do with a Brazilian pastor, Rubens, producing (or not, as the case may be!) the three documents that we need in order to apply for our visas. About two months ago he said he'd received our  big wad of paperwork (which was a relief!); had met with all relevant parties who were united in giving us the official go-ahead; and even better, he would just need five days to fulfil his side of the bargain and produce the documents. ...Over two months later, and we've not heard a thing! We will have more news next week as we receive a call from Ivo, the leader of our church out there. We are hoping that he has been able to chivvy Rubens along a bit... we will let you know what happens!