“So, well … what did you do in South America?” I asked the guy working next to me and he came up with this mind blowing story. It goes like this: A few young people watched the movie “the revolution will not be televised” and got hooked by the revolutionary energy in Venezuela. At the same time it seems they were quite bored of partying every weekend and felt like they could use their holidays in a more sophisticated way.
Soon, they visited Venezuela and found that people were incredibly open-minded towards their ideas. So from 2007 they started organizing workshops in Latin America, where voluntaries from European countries support local communities by teaching whatever they are skilled in. During these so-called “brigades” mainly young people give lessons in ceramics, drama, history, dance, English, French, biology or graffiti.
The feedback is amazing. Not only the locals appreciate the programme, also many sponsors find this project worth supporting. Furthermore the guys finance their trips by printing and selling T-Shirts and also started organizing street concerts in Germany. Among May and June there will be some exhibitions and concerts in Berlin with various artists from Latin America.
So if you are around, check it out!
For further info please have a look at their homepages:
www.interbrigadas.org
www.myspace.com/interbrigadas
How they describe themselves:
“The International Brigades want to give young people the opportunity
to become involved in the process of change in Latin America and
express their solidarity. Our project has nothing to do with simple
tourism. Every participant is asked to bring their skills, knowledge
and creativity to local people.
We see ourselves as heterogeneous platform, which organizes solidarity
work with Venezuela, i.e. cultural exchange and educational work. Our
work goes beyond the pure demonstration of solidarity as we aid
directly on the spot.
First and foremost, we support initiatives which develop from the communes themselves, from the bottom up.”
(taken from interbrigadas.org)
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