Brave Kids is a project which is going to start today in Wroclaw, my home town. It's mix together the children from developing and developed world... I'm interviewing Anastazja Gołaj, the producer of Brave Kids project.
Photo G. Korczak, Tibet 2009.
How will Brave Kids Project look like this year?
- Everything will take place in Poland. Kids are coming to Wroclaw from Nepal, Rwanda, Sweden, Zimbabwe. Two Polish groups will join them and together they will work in next two weeks to create the artistic performance. At the same time they will give concerts and performances in different institutions . During the Brave Festival each group will present its own performance and in the end the effect of their two-weeks-workshops. The day after the final group leaders will have the opportunity to meet with donors and potential partners.
How do you select the project participants?
- Of course, thanks to Brave Festival, we have various contacts. For example, the group from Nepal we know from Rokpa, a charity organization for which annual income from the festival is transferred to. Foundation operates in eighteen countries around the world and one of their projects is the orphanage in Nepal. Several years ago, Grzegorz Bral, artistic director of the festival made a performance with children from that orphanage. Mizero from Rwanda we found on the internet ... another time friends give us a tip about some group ... and thereby we create a database of children's teams in the world.
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Brave Festival fulfills its social function by providing real material support to communities that fight to preserve their traditions. During the former edition of Brave Festival, "Prayers of the World", we collected more than 83,000 PLN, all of which went to ROKPA's schools and orphanages in Tibet. Grzegorz Bral: Last summer, along with Anastazja Gołaj, I embarked on a very important, private journey to Yushu, a remote mountain region of the Tibetan plateau (at over 3,800 m above sea level). Yushu is currently in the Chinese province, Qinghai, yet 97 per cent of its population is of Tibetan origin. We found the abundance and diversity of their tradition extremely precious and important, especially when juxtaposed with their material poverty. We went to Yushu to invite representatives of nomadic communities - artists, monks - from thousand years old monastries - and students of the school run by ROKPA, to participate in Brave festival. We were, therefore, all the more moved when we heared the news that on April 14, 2010 an earthquake had struck Yushu and hurt our good friends who live there. It is an unimaginable human tragedy and a huge loss for their cultural heritage! A part of ROKPA's school was damaged. Fortunately only a few children were hurt. Thrangu monastery collapsed and some monks died. They won't be here with us in Wrocław. Vice-president of ROKPA, Lea Wyler writes, "What has happened is terrible. Around 90% of the houses in Yushu have collapsed. According to unofficial sources around 10 000 people have been killed, injured or missing. Some of our students and teachers have been badly injured. In a ROKPA supported monastery outside the town at least 40 monks have died, others are injured." This year Brave Festival would like to support children and monks from Yushu.
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Are the children prepared somehow to the cultural clash or shock? They came from such a diffirent places...
- I can tell you what are the assumptions and what was last year. Last year children from Nepal did not get visas, so their older colleagues came, however they had already been in Europe.. On the other hand the Ugandan kids never went outside of Africa.
The partner organisations are suppose to prepare them for the arrival. This year we invited the organization from Rwanda, which has the international experience. Therefore, they are able to anticipate and prepare participants for coming to Polish. We prepare families who „adopt” children to their homes. We tell them that some children may not know what is the difference between soap and shampoo. We also ask families not to give children gifts and gadgets. It can spoil them.
Do children really come from poor families?
- This year we will have kids that came from really poor families. However, last year the poorest one were Polish participants. The problem is that reaching really those in need involves a lot of energy and financial investments. We wanted to invite this year children from Gulu (Uganda). However we couldn't pay for transport so one person could go there, take kids to Kampala, issue new passports.
Isn't it more efficient to spend money for direct help in Uganda, then taking kids for two weeks to Poland?
- This project is not about investing money there. Our organisation do not work in the South, it would be artificial for us to do projects there. Last year, during the pilot edition we have learned how important is the contact for children and their families in Poland. Father of one Polish participants did not let her to perform in the final, because he said that "there will be those Nigers jumping on stage next to her. After our interventions we managed to persued him. This situation shows why we should do project here and not there. Brave Kids give Polish kids and their parents a chance to touch or see for the first time in their life a black man.
What was the main inspiration to create a Brave Kids project?
- For Grzegorz Bral I think the inspiration was Lei Wyler, who founded and created Rokpa. And of course Akong Tulku Rinpoche, who is also the founder of Rokpa. He has always said that you need to do projects for children and invest in work with them. On the other hand I know from my own experience how important is the contact and exchange of energy between different groups of children and youth. Such meetings do not bring only performances, but also change lives and way of looking at the world. They generate extraordinary energy, the desire for action and change.
You are also executive producer of the Brave Festival. Which artists are you waiting for?
-I am waiting for Bi Kidude, one-hundred-year old woman from Zanzibar. She is a shaman, dancer, singer and cult figure on the island. In addition, I'm waiting for the gypsies from Egypt. We also hope that eventually Nun Masks from Burkina Faso will come...
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The Brave Kids Project is:A voice for brave kids Sharing culture instead of cultural divisions Training in effectiveness
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Good questions, Iwona. Would be interesting to investigate how the visit affected the kids (e.g. 5 years on), if only funds and methodology were provided.
Yes, very often it happens that kids/youth/adult from developing countries start to travel from one festival to another and it’s become their life style and they don’t really come back to work in their communities…
Great initiative. “The problem is that reaching really those in need involves a lot of energy and financial investments.” - I think this is a very typical problem for this kind of projects. I have been participating in so many great volunteer projects, where the only problem was that the people who need the project are hard to recruit.
yes, recruitment is really a problem of NGO. There is a big effort of volunteering activities, trainings, seminars ect and it’s so difficult to recruit people to work with or to make a project for. So very often it ends up that the same people, the same kids get the aid or support.
Yeah, it would be interesting to investigate on this issue, a thesis could be written on this topic