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| The Cartography of the Favela is the result of an intense study of community resources to resist violence in the favelas of Recife, long one of the world's most violent cities. By showing that what motivates young men to enter armed groups and grug gangs is largely the desire for respect and justice, the study opens up new ways to channel these legitimate and good desires into a way to change the community, not to harm it.
Shine a Light, 2011, 119 Pages. Financed by the Bernard Van Leer Foundation. Executive Summary (English or Portuguese) Available in English and Portuguese |
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In 2007, Shine a Light and the Colombian NGO Taller de Vida collaborated with fifteen teenagers who had been child soldiers in the Colombian Civil War to make a feature-length fictional film based on the stories of their lives. Theater of War, Cinema of Peace tells the story of these fifteen young men and women, their experiences in the war, and the way that they used filmmaking as a way to escape from the war that surrounded them. Shaw's book provides new ways to think about peacemaking, film theory, and the construction of adolescent subjectivity.
Shine a Light, 2010. 212 pages Currently unavailable. |
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In the favelas of Recife, boys and girls invent and perform many genres of art. Superar no Movimento (Overcoming Movement) shows that their knowledge goes well beyond dance steps and drumbeats. Living in the most violent spaces in the city, they use their skills as artists to constitute themselves as subjects, while at the same time proposing ways to transform local and international culture and the way that society and the media looks at the favelas. Following the hermeneutic principle, Rita da Silva's book shows that as children create art, they are in turn created by it.
Shine a Light, 2008. 357 pages In Portuguese |
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Rio de Janeiro and Medellín have long been two of the most violent places on Earth, but innovative young leaders in both cities have found new ways to create peace, even the the most marginal of neighborhoods. Trincheiras Cidadãs (The trenches of peace), a three year long investigation of these programs, puts the knowledge developed by these grass-roots peacemakers in dialogue with contemporary social theory to suggest paths for peacemaking in other violent urban areas.
Shine a Light, 2007. 164 Pages. Available in Portuguese and Spanish (trans: Nicolás López) |
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Though often it is dismissed as fluff, kid-vid can be a powerful educational tool, not just a way to reward, entertain, or distract children. In addition to children's filmmakers' very conscious attempts to teach moral lessons in their films, we can often read unexpected political messages. KidVid and Popular Education teaches both parents and educators how to integrate children's movies into a broader pedagogical project. An important how-to for anyone involved in early childhood education.
Shine a Light, 2007. 130 Pages. In English, Spanish and Portuguese (click for On-Line Digital Workshop) |
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Many educators working with homeless children are struck by their tendency toward masochism and self-multilation. Agony Street, based on long conversations with dozens of street children in the United States and Latin America, sees latent masochism in the attitude of most people subject to capitalism, people who find their joy more in the growth of capital than in their own lives. Hurting oneself can be one path to break the libidinal bonds that tie people to a system that is destroying them.
Shine a Light, 2004. 116 Pages. Available for download in English, Spanish, and Portuguese |
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From 2000-2003, Shine a Light Director Kurt Shaw traveled to 49 cities in 12 different countries, meeting with NGOs, educators, and homeless children. Toward a General Theory of the Street documents his findings, showing what works and what does not in services for homeless and working children.
Shine a Light, 2003. 117 Pages. Available for download in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Français |
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| With a click here, you can read many essay-length works from Shine a Light. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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