Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
gun crime and drug trafficking have blighted many poor communities and distorted
the life chances of many young people, the activist Anderson Sa, himself a former
drugs trafficker turned musician, by detaching himself from his host culture, became
a leader of a cultural and social movement based around music - the community-
based Grupo Cultural AfroReggae (GCAR), formed in 1993. The group opened its
first Núcleo Comunitário de Cultura (cultural community centre) in a slum area
called Vigário Geral favela in 1993 and quickly organized workshops in dance,
percussion, garbage recycling, soccer and capoeira (a cross between a martial art, a
dance and a game). Four years later, in 1997, the GCAR opened the Centro Cultural
AfroReggae Vigário Legal (Vigário Legal AfroReggae Cultural Centre), which had
better facilities to run social, educational and cultural programmes. The vibrant hip-
hop sounds of the Banda AfroReggae inspired many young favela residents to
participate in the 'Centro', which soon offered previously unknown possibilities for
collective engagement and individual and group creativity. The GCAR has since
mobilized and empowered many slum communities. In Favela Rising , a documentary
directed by Jeff Zimbalist released in 2005, Anderson Sa can be seen reasoning with
street kids, organizing events and community actions, performing his music, and
bravely recovering from serious injury following a terrible accident. The film, together
with the topic Culture is Our Weapon (Neate and Platt, 2006), explores and clearly
demonstrates how leadership is both complex and social and also intensely personal.
The GCAR and the street kids of Rio could not respond to managerial or bureaucratic
initiatives - only something that truly emerges from their own lived experiences will
resonate with their needs and desires for a life cleared of the false and temporary
excitements, and rewards, of drugs, violence and aggression. Anderson Sa personalizes
and personifies the possibility and reality of change, leadership and sustainability.
Similar energetic cultural initiatives can be seen in many other cities in both the
developing and the developed worlds, sometimes running parallel with a range of
other community regeneration projects.
Leadership lessons from indigenous cultures
In order to learn from other cultures, it is necessary to be open to different ideas
and experiences, even those which might at first seem odd or alien. In order to lead
by example, there need to be those who are willing to follow, to learn and to act
on that learning. Indigenous cultures in many parts of the world offer opportunities
for learning and for leadership. Whether in Australia or North America, storytelling
is central to indigenous culture. The way human beings are part of nature is passed
on through the generations by stories told by the elders. Human beings talk of being
with or becoming animals, of the wind whispering, and of the spirits communicating
knowledge of the sacredness of the Earth. Life is part of a natural cycle and is itself
inherently cyclical. The indigenous worldview is essentially connective, with under-
standings of both time and space frequently expressed in oral and visual metaphors.
Spirituality is timeless, and linear time - beginning, middle and end - is but part of
the aboriginal person's circular understanding of a time continuum. Stories are
retold, become acknowledged, and, through the experience of time, place, character,
event and purpose, are shared communally and made real. As Fixico (2003) writes
in The American Indian Mind in a Linear World , the logic of the Native American's
worldview combines the physical with the metaphysical, the conscious with the
 
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