Update: Man Up – Brasil – São Paulo Ambassadors
How Man Up Came Into Our Lives
Each one of us were working with activism. When we noticed about Man Up campaign in our social network of activism in women’s rights. We talked each other and decided to be a team and apply to be a part in this urgent action a call to stop violence against women and girls.
Personally I, Fernanda, was a victim of domestic violence, but I just realized that when I was at college studying feminism. I always thought that those violent behavior was natural…was common in every family in the world. I was wrong! But it took time until I was prepared to face my fears and fight against VAW, against my personal VAW. The VAW I suffered for so long.
Studying VAW to understand myself better, I faced that in my country (Brazil) there is a kind of VAW that still is accepted as normal, as usual…the dating violence! I first read about Dating Violence as a concept by the words of a wonderful woman and activism-friend called Elin Stebins Waldal ElinStebbinsWaldal.com.
So, when we all was there at South Africa, having classes about VAW, how to work with prevention, etc… the great Summit that Man Up gave us, we had the idea to work with dating violence in our country as a way to prevent future deaths of women that died by their partners’ hands.
We had a plan, but reality is different…we had to make changes into our original plan but keeping the idea of prevention. We decided to launch a book about the theme, that is a kind of new in our country, divided in two sessions: articles about the problem and interviews with activists, etc about it. So, we begun to asking professional to write an article for us. We wanted to make something big but it was not possible, but we talked a lot and agreed that by a book that could be delivered to public biblioteques, schools, etc…by this way, maybe, we can reach a great number of people and let them to look for more information, or make people research more about it and help into public policies re-teen people. Because this girls did not know that their partners are violent with them…they think that is normal, that is a kind of love, and etc. Novels, music and others could make girls so blind to not recognize that some behaviors are violent, and that if she did not stop the relationship as soon as she can she can be in danger. We want to alert people and police makers that they are not looking for this people, for this girls that are dying and appears into newspapers as data of VAW every month! This must stop!
So, what we are facing now to keep this project on is about the money to publish the book. We study a project that was in our reach, with our time, and with a low cost but that could reach people, and a book seemed to us a great idea! We just have some collaborators; we will interview the amazing Stebbins and other people and translate them all into our language too.
We did a site for our project (in Portuguese) here:
http://www.wix.com/npamaral/manupbrasilsp
and our page at UN-WOMEN: SAY NO
About the Author
Fernanda P. Amaral
She holds a master in Sociology – researching on Gender Issues; holds another Master in “Gender, Identity and Citizenship”, in the University of Cádiz, in Spain, receiving a scholarship from MAEC AECID (Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación y de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional) for that and is actually studying the Doctorade course in “Gender, Identity and Citizenship” in the same university with the same scholarship. She is trustee of Safe World for Women International Foundation. She did interviews for the SafeWorld webzine with some Latin American celebrities talking about their experiences with violence against women; is a freelancer researcher; has a chapter in a book launched in Uruguay in 2009 - Feminist Articulation of MERCOSUL - supported by UNIFEM, and one article into a Colombian magazine Kavilando: Unsafe Abortion in Brazil: a health public question into a reproductive right, and others. She is co-writer of “Gypsy Sexuality: Roma and outsider perspectives on intimacy” with Jud Nuremberg. Actually she is writing a book about Gypsy women in Brazil and Spain and the structural violence toward them in both countries. Her thesis is about Gypsy women nowadays and the gypsy phobia in Brazil, Spain, Italy and France into the “democratic” governments and violence.
Priscila Elisabete da Silva
Ariel Finguerut
He holds a master degree in Sociology, emphasizing International Politics; he is a Political Science PhD student at the University of Campinas (Unicamp) with a scholarship from the São Paulo Research Foundation ( FAPESP). He is a Specialist in International Affairs and a research fellow at the National Institute for Studies on the United States ( NISUS/ INEU) and at the Asian Studying Lab ( LEA) from the University of Sao Paulo ( USP). He has articles published, participations on courses and academics seminars in Brazil and abroad.
Comments (2)
JIBROWN BENGEHYA NABYENDA
Martine