University of the Rivers
Our Mission
Our paradigm Project integrates four generations of Cabelo Seco community, professionals in the areas of education, health, culture and security, public servants and institutional leaders. We value creativity as the foundation of all learning and performance as the foundation of all transformation, led by children and young people, as demonstrated by the afro-indigenous youth of Cabelo Seco.
Our project Rivers of Meeting is located in the afro-indigenous, riverside community of Cabelo Seco, on the point of land between the Tocantins and Itacaiúnas Rivers, the founding community of the Amazonian city of Marabá. The population suffers the third highest index of violence in the country, excluded and violated over a century of exploitation. Children and youth awaken dormant, rich cultural roots to transform unhealed scars through artistic formation, creative cultural action and transcultural production. The proposal integrates four generations of community, professionals in the areas of education, health, culture and security, public servants and institutional leaders, to nurture a paradigm of sustainable 'good living'.
Who We Are
Advocated by the AfroRaiz Collective of young artists who coordinate sociocultural and eco-pedagogic micro-projects in the community Cabelo Seco and supported by a nucleus of their mothers and grandmothers, the Project currently acts on seven fronts: the performing AfroRaiz Collective; the dance company AfroMundi: Feet on the Ground; the Gira-Sol Solar Energy project; the Salus Medicinal Gardens project; the audio-visual collective Rabeta Videos; the community's Owl Cinema; and the Leaves of Life: family libraries project. Together, slowly, we have integrated the windows, doors, narrow streets and village square of Cabelo Seco in a community stage of transformation that is guided by the House of Rivers to embrace neighbouring schools, libraries, markets and riverside streets, the media, universities, the airport, malls and even the City Council Hall in courageous debate about the preservation of young lives and the Amazon, in the face of the predatory exploitation by mining companies. The collective community project is coordinated by the AfroRaiz Collective, itself coordinated by the performance educators of the Transformance Institute: Culture & Education.
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