Recently in Barreiras gangs of youths in their teens and early twenties are growing. They take advantage of public festivities like Carnival to provoke serious damages brawling in the streets and increasing violence. During our social work in the streets, we often have to face such gangs, each consisting of up to 60 boys and girls. A new detailed town planning has revealed the spread of gangs in almost all districts reaching a total number of 16.
Seriously concerned about such urban decay, the CDCA, the Promotoria, the Juvenile Court and the Social Work Department have taken into consideration the opportunity of youth educational work, but up to now nothing concrete has been done. Working in the streets we realize that the whole society is involved in this overall sensation of uncertainty and risk. When going out you are not sure to come back home in the same conditions as before; in our view we firmly believe it is time to put through definite solutions to these real and more and more present problems.
The youth living in the street with no schooling, no home, and no love, loses the best opportunities to grow up as a better human being who is able to love, to understand his social background and to make efforts to change his own harsh realities. Unfortunately, these notorious baby and youth gangs gather in the streets and have been contending the districts areas since long, imposing more and more violence on rivals and society so that criminal acts increase together with the size of the gangs.
In this context, the "Urban Peace" project aims to alternative activities for youths and teenagers involved. We want them to discover a new life, to arouse their self-confidence, their interest in music, theater, dance, sports, crafts and chiefly to become skilled professionals.
All main city gangs will be identified through an attempt of direct street dialogues to present the project. Later on, we will create rehabilitation areas for activities serving our purpose, and with the aid of skilled staff, courses will be directed specifically for such activities. We feel confident that the project will be of a great positive effect on urban violence and crime. The less the youth stroll in the streets, the more they will become active and positive adults in healthy surroundings, thus raising the lower social layers.
The target of this project is to create a playground for children and teenagers who attend the educational projects directed by CDCA. The "Learning through Play" project will be a useful means at the disposal of the teaching team, monitors and volunteers in their daily care of children's healthy growth, since this project invests in the enjoyment of playing to improve socialization and behaviour towards community, to develop self confidence and aim at self fulfillment, looking ahead to a positive future.
Children involved in this project are from degraded and very poor areas. The majority comes from sad stories of neglectfulness, and wounds caused by family breakups are still bleeding. Nevertheless we do feel confident that they are able to overcome such difficulties and react positively expressing their own particular skills hindered by the negative background up to now.
In fact, we are planning to buy two plots of land lying fallow bordering the existing house of volunteers (on the outskirts of Vila Rica). These plots would be surrounded by walls and planted with fruit trees (not only for the shade but also to provide juice and snacks). There would also be a sandy area and a small swimming pool. This open space will offer the children new chances to grow up by means of team playing, fair competition, respect of social and playing rules, acknowledgement of defeat as a part of the game, and good performance of relationship.