community action programs (caps)
Transformers
DESCRIPTION
Transformers CAP is a volunteer program through which15 artists and athletes across Portugal are going to teach, from October 2010 to June 2011, 150 young people in high-schools, pediatric hospitals, schools for the visual impaired and centers to young offenders around Lisbon, the forms of art and sports the teens in these institutions seek to learn, for free, but with a payback…
Which is to use the sport or form of art you have learned throughout the year to, together with your mentor and peers, transform in your own and original way, the life of someone or a dead space, into something better.
Therefore:
- Teens that learned graffiti can make a brick wall more than a wall of bricks and turn it into a canvas;
- Teens that learned freestyle football can make a showcase to raise balls and knickers to young people from poor neighborhoods in Lisbon;
- Teens that learned how to draw comics can build up a story, with their own heroes, which communicates their needs and thoughts;
- The limit? Our teensmagination…
AIMS
Our goal is to, by June 2011,having turned each of these 150 teens in a Transformer - someone who’s empowered and equipped with a sport (soccer, free-running, swimming,…) or form of art (break-dance, poetry, bmx, parkour, …) and that uses that passion and ability to, together, transform positively the community where he/she lives.
ACTIVITIES
Transformers CAP is divided in 5 stages: Find, Recruit, Empower, Teach, Transform.
1st- Find out what sport, form of art or activity the young people in the institutions were going to work with seek to learn
2nd- Recruit mentors able to teach these teens and that can be seen as an example of someone who got through similar challenges and overcame them
3rd- Empower the mentors and build a team compromise through a 5 day intensive training programme
4th- Teach for 9 months the forms of art and sports the teens in these institutions wish to learn
5th- Transform local communities using sport and art and the ideas, energy and dedication of th teens involved in the project.
OUTCOMES
In the words of Neil Ferguson, who is a Professor of History at Harvard University and who personally supports this project, we expect Transformers "to go viral, spreading from break-dancing in Lisbon (who knows?) cricket in the Bronx and fly-fishing in Kinshasa"
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
Ideas spread faster than projects and so, whichever country your living in, feed this idea and send us your personal contributions, which can be new/old draws, texts, poems, music, pictures, videos etc.. Showing the Transformer within you.
We are going to have an online gallery with every contribution we recieve, your name country and a little explanation about your piece of work.
Send us an email with your contribution, name, country and description to: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Find us at www.projectotransformers.org
facts
Area of Activism:
Conflict Resolution
Region
Europe
Country
Portugal
Changemakers involved
João from the Global Youth Summit 2009
