The event featured the screening of the documentary Raizes Sem Terra, followed by a debate which showcased the importance of the authentic voice. Setting the tone for the discussion after the screening, Guarda’s words invited the audience to reflect on the power learners and citizens have against systems of oppression, colonisation and exploitation – with a specific focus on economic neocolonisation and its effects on human rights and dignity.
These choices and deals we make have an impact; they can (and should) be ethical and for the needs of the many, not the few.
The Sem Terra communities live in Bahia, Brazil. Having been dispossessed of their land, these communities have been engaged for decades in a daily struggle to have their basic rights recognized such as the right to water, land and freedom. While government officials continue to cultivate a culture of fabricated scarcity, people are organising, mobilising and learning.
Through the imagery of the Sem Terra and the authentic voices of the people we witness the individual and communal struggles for resources, rights, policy change but also how communal and participatory processes develop opportunities to educate, learn, and bring prosperity to the region.
As one of the people from the film noted, “I learned here how to read, write, and how to be happy.”
Learning how to be happy, and what can be found in the Joy of Learning, Raffaela Kihrer, the Secretary General of EAEA, brought the perspective of adult learning and education. Paraphrasing Paolo Freire, she noted that “Education can either be liberating or disciplining“.
During her intervention, she reminded us of how important it is to speak about language, voice and vocabulary around education within the EU. This is crucial, especially in a time when skills, competitiveness, career paths, quantifiable metrics, and benchmarks are at the center of the educational narrative. Stressing the priorities of the ENHANCE project, she particularly highlighted how we have the imperative to create spaces for the learners’ voices to be included in policy as a constant process of claiming and reclaiming space. In this process, we need to understand that if the EU continues to focus only on performance indicators, we risk losing touch with the importance, meaning, and essential nature of non-formal and informal adult learning, that of joy, power, and satisfaction in our lives.
The event opened space for discussion between the participants and the creative team of the documentary, namely, Francesco Ballarini, the Film Director, Fabio Rotondo, Executive Producer, and Francesco Saretto, Executive Producer, who shared their mission in sharing the documentary with the world: representing the voices of the unheard as authentically as possible. The team emphasized how they wish that this film will become a tool for advocacy, to bring attention to the power of the people’s voices when they come together, organize in communities and reach international support.
If you wish to support the film and the fight of the Sem Terra, you can visit their crowdfunding initiative and learn more about it, following this link.
Text: Angeliki Giannakopoulou, Greta Pelucco, Marina Sakač Hadžić