CAPs Friday 18/06/10

Friday, 18 June 2010 | posted by Sara_BC
CAPs (Community Action Programmes)

Transformers 2010

Hello everyone!

My name is João, I am a Portuguese Global Changemaker and one of the heads of the Transformers CAP, together  with 2 friends, Carolina and António.

Our goal with this CAP is simple: “to turn teens into transformers”.

What is a transformer?
A transformer is someone who’s empowered and equipped with a sport (soccer, free-running, swimming,…), form of art (break-dance, poetry, bmx, parkour, …) or first-aid ability and that uses that passion and ability to transform the life of someone, a dead space, or a community, into something else, through small acts, like for instance, playing a soccer game with disenfranchised youth from poor communities in Lisbon.
Just to give you a small introduction, the Transformers project started like most of the projects: a small amount of ashes, a spark and a group of friends.

The ashes are basically a set of social problems related to bullying, discrimination, criminality, violence, and drug addiction in Portuguese schools, there are dead public spaces, there are no valid occupations for teens after school and most of the youth isn’t active in their communities. And our belief is that youth isn´t active, not because we’re indifferent, but mostly because many of us have never found their own way to make a difference.

What’s the spark?  I guess we all have our own spark, and mine came from swimming, and later the b-boying (media calls it break-dance!). Until 2006 I was a national swimming champion in PortugaI, I remember of having trainings everyday for a couple of years... Ironically, though half of my life was swimming I couldn’t say I didn’t liked it, but I couldn’t say either that that was something I was really passionate about and identify with, I was there more because of the friends I had there, than because of the swimming itself.

When I turned 16 it just came to myself that I had to make use of the chance while I am young to make something really chosen by me. Though I don’t regret it, I never chose to be a swimmer, I got into a pool with 3 years old, and never stopped, until then. What did I wanted to do?

I wanted to become a b-boy, a break-boy (break-dancer).

At the time, nobody understood my decision to quit swimming, my swimming trainers, my friends and my parents – I think not even me sometimes, I just knew I wanted to do it. And so I start dancing, and for more than one year trained in the street with a group of friends in a small park between 2 buildings, that was my second home – I still remember how hard it was to me to get relaxed in the dance, if you get the chance to see my old videos (which I won’t post here!) you would think that Robocop was dancing in place of me!

Well, 3 years passed since then and I am a little bit better now. I think though I train very hard I  will never be a great dancer, I still have a lot to learn. But that’s not my purpose either, because I have finally found something which is for me more than just a dance, as soccer was for Mandela “more than just a game”. B-boying is for me a philosophy, a way to see life, of putting attitude, flow, freshness and emotion in everything you do.

And so, now, with my dance crew we have an outreach project to teach challenged teens this dance – we found something we’re good at, and we’re sharing it – we found our own way to make a difference, and that’s Transformers’ spark.

With the group of friends, who felt the same about these issues, came the Transformers’ idea:
 Ask inner city teens in schools, pediatric hospitals and orphanages what do they want to learn, and train youth good at those sports, forms of art or health practices (eg. First-aid) to teach them more about it, for one year.

Therefore, from October 2010 to June 2011 we’re going to teach for free, and for one year, 280 teens the sport, form of art or health practice they choose to learn by finding and training mentors good at it. By the end of the year, however, there’s a payback… to society.

Each group of teens will have to use what they’ve learned throughout the year to TRANSFORM, in their own way, the life of someone or a dead space, into something else, and therefore:
• Teens that, as me, learned how to dance, can teach other teens how to dance, share their passion;
• Teens that learned how to play soccer, can for instance play a soccer game with disadvantaged children from poor communities in Lisbon;
• Teens that learned first-aid, can help save a life by knowing those little and basic things we all should know about first-aid;
• Teens that learned how to paint graffiti - can now make of a brick wall, more than a wall of bricks, and turn it into a canvas.
• The list continues… and the limit is teensmagination!

Now, we’re working to make this idea come true – and we are on our way to get it right by the end of the Summer. Transformers will be organized under the Social Innovation Portugal, a chapter of one organization I was invited to start after coming from the WEF in Davos and through it we are getting ideas, advice and support from top entrepreneurs around the world; we have a partnership with Harvard University through a project they have called Cultural Agents, and good perspectives to have one with “Do Something”, an American project being replicated in Portugal.

Finally, our team is growing, we’re starting the recruitment of the young mentors and trying to get a nice place where we can meet and work together, which is going to be something like a old train carriage we’re going to TRANSFORM in our meeting and working place, inspired by a project done In the UK.

Paolla Antonelli, the curator of the Contemporary Art Museum of New York, wrote a text on the Transformers project to give her support to this CAP, we live by these words, and we hope so will live the teens we impact.

"As many cultures all over the world know, dance is a universal language that needs no translation. It empowers people, makes them feel expressive and meaningful, able to communicate, seduce, intimidate, love, and confront without hurting the enemy--at least not physically. I cannot think of a better and more benign weapon to offer to disenfranchised young people that do not own it, yet."