Português
Saturdays. Always Saturdays to go and to receive, meet people and ideas.
This time it was the Cais Association that visited us at Quinta do Cabrinha.
The plan was similar to what we like to do: receive well, make everyone feel at ease to meet and share a full day, with street football and the machines of Pietro, with Alcântara from today and from yesterday.
To start, football. Street football. The Cais Association has a long history related to the modality. They were their first promoters in the country, using it as a social inclusion strategy since 2004 with great success. And they came to share the field with us, mixing people of all ages and with very different life histories, playing during one whole morning.
It is important for us, in the Outros Campeonatos, to see so much happening. The people who visit us are so different from each other, they have such different life stories and different life paths to travel. This is the kind of interaction that we are trying to provide: varied, without any prejudices and, above all, sincere. To know and giving to know projects and initiatives that grow emotionally and empathically.
“Águias Recreativo Clube” was kind enough to give us space for lunch, which happened once again in the heart of Cabrinha and was prepared by a resident of Cabrinha (to Maria da Luz, again, thank you). A group of Cabrinha volunteers helped to organize the meal, which was for over 30 people! To set the table, to clear the table, to clean the room, Érica, Núria, Mena and Guilherme were tireless and indispensable…
The partnership with the cultural initiative UM OUTRO OLHAR continues to show results and the visits through Alcântara succeed one after another. Once again, they showed us the area of the “Vale de Alcântara” and what it once was to our guests and a few dozen of curious who decided to share the Saturday afternoon with us.
This time, we started at the LX Factory with the machines of Pietro and went up the old river of Alcântara towards Quinta do Cabrinha.
But before we left, there was a surprise. Carlos and Ana, from UM OUTRO OLHAR, prepared a small script, in the form of a play for all the participants. And the youngsters who use to flood the Citizenship Academy headquarters every afternoon took over their roles and read their characters to all the people present (and they were not just a few, believe me). Also one of the visitors from Um Outro Olhar participated in the reading. It is a way of including all the participants in the visit and in the environment of the old Vale de Alcântara, which we want to revive during these walks.
We also added to this script a simple map to show the old buildings that populated the area of the visit in order to give a more concrete idea of what the area looked like.
It was another day of a big smile. These are the ones we like. To CAIS, our immense thanks for the visit. May the next meeting be soon!
On 6th May there is a new visit. We will receive the Dá-te ao Condado – E6G people. We miss it already, it will be good.
P.S. This weekend there is a show from the theater group of the Cais Association happening in Chapitô. We think we should all go. Let’s go.
Outros Campeonatos is a project by Academia Cidadã, that aims to promote active citizenship in Quinta do Cabrinha, Alcântara.
Funded by BIP/ZIP from the Municipality of Lisbon with the partnership of District Hall of Alcântara, the youth group “Winds of Change”, the National Association of Street Football and the Lisbon Sustainable Tourism.
Outros Campeonatos will contribute for the social fortification of the neighborhood, promoting community organization, capacity for local initiative and greater democratic awareness. It will also promote an opening of the neighborhood to society in general, reinforcing its integrity in the city. The main strategies of action will be street football and tourism. Street football events draw the inhabitants of the neighborhood to intervene and participate in its organization and implementation – with facilitation of tools and processes of organized citizen participation. Tourism helps rethinking the neighborhood, opening the community to new citizenship experiences.