New Grantee: The Guerreiras Project

The Guerreiras Project: Moving Bodies, Moving Minds

By Spark Fellow Kendra Hyett

Brazil is famous for its colorful and extravagant Carnival, vibrant culture, and renowned soccer, known locally as futebol. But there are also many issues the spotlight of international futebol games, the upcoming 2014 World Cup, and 2016 Olympics are revealing.

Brazilian male futebol players have recently made headlines around racism they face from other countries during their games. While the Brazilian president shared support for the players discriminated against and anti-racism efforts, the idea of Brazil as an advocate for equality was soon struck a blow when a Brazilian player facing discrimination, Paulo Cesar Fonseca, known as Tinga, revealed the discrimination he faced in his own country: “You can see it in people’s eyes. Look, there goes the black guy with the white, blonde girlfriend. In Brazil there is so much prejudice, not just racial, but also social.” “In Brazil we talk about equality, but we hide our prejudice. We pretend that everyone is equal.”

Those social inequalities ring true around the unequal treatment of women within the country’s most popular sport, inequality for girls in education, women facing violence, and a large gap between rich and poor. According to CNN, as of 2013, in world rankings for the gap between rich and poor, Brazil has the 11th biggest gap, coming in after a group of impoverished African countries. The 2011 female-to-male ratio for primary school enrollment is 0.98 and for secondary school enrollment it is 1.10. The difference is bigger for the 16-17 age group, as 25% of girls are involved in employment versus nearly 42 % for boys. Also, a 2013 report by UN Women found that many Latin American countries have a higher-than-average incidence of domestic violence with the staggering detail that a woman is assaulted every 15 seconds in Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo.

And, as can be imagined, these social inequalities and injustices for women reach into sports. There is a strong social stigma around women in sports with the sexist belief that futebol is not a sport for women to the point that it was actually illegal for women to play futebol in Brazil from 1941 to 1979 – not just professionally, but even for fun. While there are now professional teams, they lack financial interest and support, as well as fan and media attention.

With all of these often hidden prejudices and inequalities in Brazil, it is difficult to address these issues without innovative tools and thinking. Therefore, Spark is thrilled to support our newest grantee, The Guerreiras Project, an international collective of female athletes, artists, academics, and activists in Brazil using futebol as a powerful, effective, and non-threatening tool to promote gender justice. The Guerreiras Project provides approachable spaces for making gender and social issues visible, creating possibilities for more equitable and sustainable ways of being. While their main focus is gender justice, they also use the opportunity of connecting with their communities through futebol and workshops to address other social justice issues such as race, class, sexuality, disability, and ethnicity.

The Guerreiras Project (inspired by the Portuguese term ‘guerreira’ meaning female warrior), kicked off in 2010 as a multimedia documentary exploring the shifts and inequalities around gender norms in Brazil, and what it means to be a woman playing futebol in a country famous for men’s futebol. Now run by a dynamic team of six women plus eight female futebol players acting as ambassadors, The Guerreiras Project runs workshops, ambassador trainings, provides public presentations, takes part in exhibitions, and research projects. They approach their work on two platforms: working with individual professional female players to train them as ambassadors for the organization and gender justice, and working within their communities to raise awareness, collect stories, and provide tools for change. The Guerreiras Project sees the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic games taking place in Brazil as the prime opportunity to capture the attention of the world as all eyes are on Brazil for these international sporting events. They are looking to expand their organization to support a campaign around gender justice during this crucial time of international attention to Brazil and their sport.

A Spark grant will cover:

• Financial support to build their organizational capacity  to ensure growth, replication, and sustainability around their 2014 World Cup campaign, and
• Pro bono support for the campaign including Video Editing, Graphic Design, and Newsletter Support.

Pro bono services are graciously being provided by Velosa, Ink., an exclusive network of professional multimedia journalists and tenacious industry publicists.

If you would like to support Spark’s fundraising efforts for The Guerreiras Project, you can make a donation on Spark’s website. We are also planning a fundraising event soon, so stay tuned! We would also love to hear from you if you are interested in being a part of providing further pro bono services. Email programs@sparksf.org. We are so excited to support this fantastic organization, and thank you for all of your support! Visit The Guerreiras Project’s Website, plus follow them on Twitter and Facebook!