IofC and GQA people working togetherIn October and November 2011, Initiatives of Change Brazil (IofC) and ‘Gente Que Avanza’ (GQA) worked together in several Brazilian cities exchanging personal and cultural experiences through their participants.

The GqA group of 17 young adults between the ages of 22 and 44 consisted of participants from the GqA Latin America Training Centre in Montevideo, Uruguay. The young people were from Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina, Uruguay, Ukraine and Brazil. They arrived in Rio de Janeiro to take part in a joint programme with IofC. In this way the visits to Barbacena, Petropolis and Rio were part of the traditional tours undertaken by GqA training programmes for the promotion of leadership skills and ethical values based on moral and spiritual roots.

Also part of this venture were Keith and Rachel Mills, a young couple involved with IofC in Australia, who contributed their own experiences and learned from the young Latin Americans, working together with their new friends and joining in all the activities.

The objectives were: to pass on the knowledge and experience of GqA and IofC; to gain from experience lived out in Brazil; to identify and recruit potential local leaders who might become involved in the IofC and GqA programmes after the visit; to strengthen the dialogue and connection between the two organisations for the greater effectiveness of future programmes.

EpCar cadets watching the presentation

The idea was to promote artistic and cultural presentations and give a series of workshops on leadership, personal development, self-knowledge and teamwork. There was a basic focus on human values combined with rich exchanges of cultural experience. IofC and GqA could together, through their work with young people, present the message of personal and global change.

Various organisations in each city shared in the project, among them municipal high schools, religious institutions, vocational training colleges and the Cadet Training School for the Brazilian Air Force in Barbacena. This establishment’s first contact with IofC was a group of cadets coming to the Sitio Saõ Luiz, the Latin American IofC Training Centre in Petropolis, in 2010 to an event during the visit to Brazil of Rajmohan Gandhi, the former President of Initiatives of Change International, and his team. During the visit to the Barbacena Cadet Training School the travelling group put on a cultural show, workshops on Effective Living and Interpersonal Relations and role-play exercises on values. Six hundred from the school were involved. Following the success of this visit the school’s management want to have at least one more workshop of this kind in 2012.

The IofC Training Centre on the outskirts of the Petropolis has over time established good relations with the city authorities who played their part in preparations for the visiting group. As well as workshops in schools, there was a cultural show in Itaipava Park in the Petropolis district which delighted the audience. Around 160 high school and university students attended a workshop on Interpersonal Relations at the Support Foundation of the local technical school. One of the participants, Hanna Nolasco aged 15, said the workshop taught her to 'try and think more carefully before adopting fixed opinions and so making mistakes; also to think about and better appreciate each person in order to make the most of opportunities and to change my attitudes to some situations.'

Workshops on several themes during all the programThe main events in Rio de Janeiro were in the Lydia dos Santos (CEAC-Vila) Educational establishment for children and teenagers, with interactive presentations and games that tackled the subjects of responsibility, honesty, integrity, teamwork, etc., and in the Central Station, the best known rail passenger terminal in Brazil with 700,000 passengers passing through each day. For this major cultural show, veterans Jeanette Alonso (GqA), Luis Puig and his wife Evelyn (IofC) honoured the event with their presence, demonstrating their faith in an ideal passed from generation to generation by both movements.

In all the cities there were informal times, talks on the history of the place, and leisure with the host families where the young people stayed. Our sense is that God is showing us the way, and that the alliance between IofC and GqA needs to continue and to reach the whole of the immense country of Brazil and one day, perhaps, the whole of Latin America.

Now in January 2012, IofC and GqA are planning workshops which have been requested by those institutions already involved and by others struck by the issues covered in the 2011 programme.

Full report

Download the full report with details of all the activities(PDF)