Quintal Itinerante uses clowning techniques to empower young victims of bullying and those with learning difficulties

In 2004, in the first week of school, there was an incident between a classmate and Lucas, Luciana’s son, at the time 7 years old, and although both were wrong, only Lucas received a punishment. The boy stood on his feet by the teacher, without the right to eat or go to the bathroom until the end of the class, which was a full-time period. His teacher, not yet satisfied, exposed Lucas in front of the whole school at the end of the class. Shouting that he was a monster, a marginal, a future bandit and that he did not deserve to be there, and he would only leave school in his mother’s company. 

As Luciana was working and a neighbour was present to pick him up, he was left alone at school, found by the resident employee around 8 pm.

From that day onwards, Lucas began to behave aggressively and be hostile. So he was referred to several health professionals, being medicated with some very strong medicines. At the suggestion of one of these professionals, he started to practice swimming and ballet, but nothing had any effect. Until Luciana found a psychologist who explained the boy’s behaviour, he was being bullied.

In the middle of this process, she met Rogério Rodrigues, a clown master, who performed works through the clown technique with “problematic” children, and Lucas began to participate. He liked it so much, says Luciana, that he invited his brothers and cousins ​​to participate together.

Luciana realized that clowning is a practice that allows participants to see themselves in various roles in society, causes laughter, encourages resistance and offers a way out to those who don’t know where to go, in addition to restoring self-esteem. Participants perceive that they are accepted there regardless of colour, age, religion or any other characteristic.

Luciana was so passionate about the work carried out by Rogério and the results obtained by Lucas. Inspired by the technique, she started a project with her children’s help.

“I started in my backyard, with the aim of educating through the games played by our African ancestors; then the activities started happening in different places and, each new place we went, more children joined. The number of participants increased, and it became the Quintal Itinerante.”

Luciana says that the purpose of the project is to work on Racism

She claims that it has been proven that blacks are the ones who suffer most from bullying in Brazil. Not only as a victim but also as an aggressor victim, the one who suffers the aggression and cannot deal with the situation and returns to take revenge. That’s why the work is more focused on the racial issue, on empowerment, on blackening, so that the black participant can position themselves as such and with pride. Parenting is also very important, she understands that the family has to be included in it, because, for bullying to be fought, it is necessary to join forces between the school, the family, and society.

“The work mainly is carried out by black artists, with black stories, designed for blacks and guided by African culture, and complete: it takes a whole village to take care of a child. The idea is for the community to assume this role,” says Luciana.

For Luciana, one of the challenges faced is to make education professionals and authorities aware of the importance of fighting Bullying. Well, things haven’t changed much even after so many tragedies, like the “O Massacre de Realengo”, which took place in April 2011. She also says that the project has managed to convince people that bullying is really lethal, and the work done by Quintal Itinerante is seen with more attention and seriousness.

Today Lucas is a clown, musician, singer, social activist, historian, and sociology student.

The activities offered by the Itinerant Backyard

Storytelling, tutoring, reading mediation, citizenship workshops, rights and duties, crafts in general, black aesthetics, recycling and environmental preservation, introduction to black medicine, planting of medicinal herbs and horticulture, always through clowning. Around 2,000 children and adolescents received support from the project.

Address: Estrada Manoel Nogueira de Sá, 643, Realengo, Zona Oeste do Rio.

The Itinerant Backyard needs you! To support, contact:

+55 (21) 9 6592-6128 – Jessica

+55 (21) 9 9303-2799 – Luciana

Follow Backyard Itinerant on Instagram.

For more information about Bullying, click here.