Bahia Street » Nancy Bacon

Defining Beauty in Brazil

June 8, 2010 | Nancy Bacon

The New York Times just published an interesting article about changing concepts of beauty in Brazil. It reminds us of Rita’s tremendous effort to promote concepts of beauty for African-descent children. She has a bulletin board and pictures of black women all over the Bahia Street Center — models as well as “regular” women– to show Bahia Street girls and young women that they are just as beautiful as all of the southern Brazilian models that fill local magazines.

Human Rights & Bahia Street

November 16, 2009 | Nancy Bacon

I just came back from the University of Washington Bothell campus where I gave a talk about human rights in Brazil. While Bahia Street does not frame its work in a human rights framework, our model speaks directly to the words expressed in Article 1 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. If we believe that all people have dignity, the ability to reason, and a conscience that tells them right from wrong, it is not a big jump to believe that all people have the right to have their authority, knowledge, and ability to draw conclusions to complex problems honored with the opportunity to run social change projects within their own society. Bahia Street’s model operationalizes the spirit behind the Eleanor Roosevelt’s words: “Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.” Local people seeking equal justice, working close to home. In a place where discrimination still persists, Bahia Street is making a difference by offering a different model for how we can make a difference in our world.

Day of Saints Cosme and Damião

October 20, 2009 | Nancy Bacon

Margaret recently called Rita to plan for her upcoming trip to Bahia. She reached Rita on her cell phone at the Teatro Velho (Old Theater) with the roar of children in the background. As a part of the Day of Children (which is actually on October 12th), the whole student body was spending the week at the theater taking part in an arts program focused on spring and children. Bahia is celebrating the start of spring now.

Rita also reminded us that they had just celebrated the Day of Saints Cosme and Damião, twin saints who represent prosperity in Salvador. It is the custom that people provide food to the poor on this day. The Bahia Street Center prepares a huge feast and opens up the Center to the whole community. It is believed that providing food ensures prosperity to the future– you increase your own luck for the future if you give away food. Rita takes this opportunity to thank the community for its enduring support. She invited the children from a neighborhood project, Sinal Fechado (“Red Light,” representing the traffic lights at which many children work), to come for a meal. In fact, Bahia Street receives support from a donor to help Sinal Fechado throughout the year in order to extend Bahia Street’s infrastructure beyond our Center to other places of need within the community in which the Center is located. Below are some pictures of the Bahia Street girls preparing the ocra for the main dish of this festival, Caruru, and the Sinal Fechado children eating the meal. Caruru is food that is eaten following certain rituals, the main one being that the kids get to eat first! It is actually quite delicious… a supporter of ours put the recipe on their webpage.

Bahia Street Milestone: Rita dedicates Room to Bahia Street Co-Founder Margaret Willson

August 13, 2009 | Nancy Bacon

In May 2009, Bahia Street Center director Rita Conceição dedicated a room in the Bahia Street Center to her partner in co-founding Bahia Street, Dr. Margaret Willson. Rita worked for months to have the capoeira room in the Center completed by the time of Margaret’s visit and then surprised Margaret during a capoeira performance given by Bahia Street girls for this year’s study trip participants.

In a moving presentation, Rita told the story of how she and Margaret met playing capoeira in Salvador over fifteen years ago. In front of the entire Bahia Street community—students, caregivers and faculty—Rita recognized Margaret’s important role in making Bahia Street a reality through honoring their meeting in this dedication of the Center’s capoeira room. Acknowledging that neither of them had been training capoeira for years, Rita then invited Margaret into the capoeira roda (circle) where they slowly began to play. Study trip leader Melanie Wyffels described the powerful energy in the room that day, which intensified during this roda. “You could feel the love and fierceness connecting their energy.”

“It was particularly meaningful to me to be celebrated in this way in front of Rita’s community—the Bahia Street community in Salvador,” Margaret later reflected. “And the fact that key members of the Bahia Street Trust were there made it all the more special.” The Seattle Bahia Street community celebrated Rita’s role in co-founding Bahia Street during our 10th anniversary celebration that took place in Seattle in 2006.

Bahia Street bought the Bahia Street Center building in 2004 and immediately begun reconstruction of it. The building continues to gain floors as new funding is found. The building currently has five floors, including classrooms, a complete kitchen and dining room, a library, administrative offices, and now a capoeira room.

Girls playing capoeira in a presentation for study trip participants. Rita leading the presentation in “Sala Margaret Willson.” Rita dedicating the room to Margaret. Margaret and Rita playing capoeira.

Global Violence: Connections between the US and Brazil

May 7, 2009 | Nancy Bacon

Addressing poverty in Brazil– or anywhere for that matter– involves holistic solutions that bring citizens from all of our countries together to work for equality and better quality of life for everyone. One example of how we are all interconnected lies in the relationship between drugs, guns, and violence here and the same issues in the shantytowns of Brazil. Seattle International Foundation president Bill Clapp recently wrote in the Seattle Times about the connection between the drug trade in the US and the drug trade in Central America. Interwoven with the drug trade is violence and the gun trade, and how U.S. legislation regarding guns affects our neighbors to the south. Gun violence is a huge challenge for impoverished shantytown residents. A recent article in the Global Politician discusses the connection between violence and a depressed economy. To quote that article: “To make the matter worse, countries in Central and Southern America top the league for gun homicides, with Colombia suffering from a mortality rate of 50 deaths for every 100,000 people, according to United Nations figures. The statistics for gun deaths in Honduras , El Salvador , Brazil , Venezuela , Guatemala, Jamaica and Ecuador are only marginally less. For many ordinary citizens of these nations, however, the quality of life is getting worse due to the constant fear of the firearms. In the increasingly desperate towns and villages, people are killing one another in record numbers and the social costs of gun violence are alarming.”