Open air Capoeira classes in Al-Tarif

Both special guests are confirmed!!

Masters João Grande and Gato will be in London together for the Capoeiragem in London Festival.

Watch this space: complete info will be available next week and we are glad to invite you capoeirista, friends and everyone which is interested in Capoeira as a instrument of changing and transformation. This wil be an open Festival for all the Capoeira community in London, UK and Europe.

Activities already confirmed:

. Capoeira workshops* with Mestres João Grand and Gato
. Samba de Gafieira Workshop
. Lecture with PhD Professor Matthias R. Assunção
. Round table
. Film screening
. Party

* We garantee a space for training wich will be fully spaced for all those which will come for the capoeira movement workshops.

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The Capoeira Conference 2011 will donate the income generated from the Event to the projects developed by BIDNA Capoeira.

BIDNA:

“Capoeira is amazing. Our projects have already achieved such success. And now we’re getting the chance to bring the important psychosocial support, empowerment and fun offered by capoeira to the kids of Palestine as well.”

(Tarek Asalah, Bidna Capoeira Chairman)

Cue the MUSIC, the DANCE, the LAUGHTER…

Psychosocial support charity Bidna Capoeira are pleased to invite you to get involved with their exciting new psychosocial counselling and community outreach project in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.

Bidna Capoeira specialises in working with children in refugee camps. Through the use of the Brazilian, sport, dance, music and play of capoeira our network has had considerable success in helping children cope with emergency situations throughout the Middle East as well as breaking cycles of violence and alienation.

Now Bidna Capoeira are experiencing success after success in Palestine.

Since March 2011 we’ve been running a project with 480 children in six of UNRWA’s West Bank camps. We’ve been teaching these children the joy of Brazilian dance, music and art. Simultaneously our specialised network of psychosocial consultants have been working alongside experts within UNRWA to identify and offer additional support to those children suffering particular problems with alienation and exclusion.

We are also training local school teachers to use different methods in working with children at particular risk.

Against a backdrop of general turbulence in the Middle East Bidna Capoeira believe it’s time to celebrate something truly uplifting. Time to show how an innovative approach can benefit the children of the area. Time to show that cycles of violence can be smashed…

Who are Bidna Capoeira?

Bidna Capoeira provides psychosocial relief to children in refugee camps and similarly challenging environments using sport, music and play.

With a network of free capoeira classes for children across the Middle East Bidna Capoeria began as a collaboration with UNICEF Syria to work in the Al Tanf refugee camp. Watch a film on the Al Tanf project. Lodged on a whisper of land between Iraq and Syria, Al Tanf housed some of the most damaged and vulnerable children from the 2003 Iraq war. Initiating a 20-week training project team members witnessed the hugely positive effects of their work on the ground – success which inspired the team to inaugurate Bidna Capoeira as a registered British charity. We are completely apolitical and culturally inclusive.

What is Capoeira?

Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian sport and art form. It combines movement dance, acrobatics, music, song and play. It has its own philosophy based on respect. There are no winners, no losers – all ages and sexes play and learn together as equals. We think it is the inclusive, collaborative and supportive elements of capoeira that makes it so popular with children and so successful at engaging them on a psychological level.

What’s in a name?

Bidna Capoeira simply means ‘We want capoeira’ in Arabic. The name was chosen for us by the children we teach. During our first project it wasn’t long before the children began sending us mobile phone footage of themselves practicing capoeira and chanting “Bidna capoeira, bidna capoeira”, “we want capoeira, we want capoeira.”

What Bidna Capoeira are doing in Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territory?

Bidna Capoeira’s exciting new project will benefit 480 Palestinian children from in and around the West Bank.

We will be working with children who have experienced alienation, physical violence, arrest and house eviction with the aim of allowing all beneficiaries a safe means of expression and a valid physical release for their anxiety and potentially violent behaviour.

For the duration of the project Bidna Capoeira’s psychologists will be working alongside experts within UNRWA to help pinpoint especially at risk children, and ensure those displaying damaging and worrying attitudes are give additional support. We will also work closely with the camp communities to bulwark them as they strive to seek their own methods for addressing their longterm protection issues.

What Bidna can offer members of the press?

Members of the press are invited to get involved with Bidna Capoeira’s new project in Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territory. We have an experienced media team creating premium quality video and photographic content on the ground and spokespeople willing to talk you through the project, and arrange project visits and interviews.

As part of our project, local children will also be given HD camera equipment, to record their own lives and experiences. Edited, royalty free elements of Bidna’s recorded material will be available for use in international packages alongside necessary permissions.

Who do I need to contact?

Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territory enquiries: issac@bidnacapoeira.org

Media enquiries: rob@bidnacapoeira.org

Sponsorship enquiries: ummul@bidnacapoeira.org

For more information please visit www.bidnacapoeira.org,  join us on facebook or contact a member of the team.

Notes – edit elements

What the Bidna Capoeira network does?

The Bidna Capoeira network brings the sport of capoeira to thousands of children across the Middle East through our ‘Free 4 Kids’ capoeira classes.

The Bidna Capoeira network works with prisoners in jails and with excluded and vulnerable women’s groups to boost confidence, communication, entitlement and health.

The Bidna Capoeira network works with refugees from the Iraq war.

The Bidna Capoeira network helps Palestinian refugees across the Middle East to ease their sense of alienation and to teach acceptance and toleration.

The Bidna Capoeira also teaches music and art to children in addition to dance and sport and concentrates on training the capoeira trainers of the future.