VILA VERDE – Young people bring an exhibition on discrimination and social inequalities to the center of Vila Verde

Vila Verde hosts, this Wednesday, an exhibition in the center of the town with the result of research work and sharing of feelings and expressions of young people, as part of an international project to combat discrimination and anti-social rumors, promote inclusion and build intercultural bridges.

Integrated into the NET-IDEA Project (Network of European Towns for Interculturalism, Diversity, Equality & Anti-Discrimination), the exhibition “Visual Voices: Portraits of Belonging” is presented at 11:00 am, at Praça de Santo António, in Vila Verde.

This initiative «gives voice and space to a group of young people from Vila Verde, in order to understand what they have to say regarding their sense of belonging, inclusion and identity».

As a source from the organization explains, «cities are constantly changing and growing diversity makes it necessary for us to embrace the cultural mosaic as an essential part of our collective identity. This approach becomes even more necessary when situations of inequality and discrimination persist».

The municipality of Vila Verde joined this project, «making clear its commitment to promoting inclusion and intercultural relations and combating discrimination».

He highlights that «this mission was successfully achieved, through cooperative work with young people from the municipality, who were asked to write new narratives worthy of a more inclusive European society».

This exhibition is inspired by the results of the “Juventude Anti-Rumores 2023” event and a subsequent photovoice activity carried out with young people from the municipality of Vila Verde, in partnership with the Prado Community Center, of the Braga Delegation of the Portuguese Red Cross.

WHAT IS PHOTOVOICE?

Photovoice is a participatory research methodology where, through photographs taken by the people involved, we can access their needs, reflections, narratives and ideas to improve the community.

To carry out the Photovoice activity, it was necessary to select a group of young people to work with. The Vila Verde team felt that it made sense to involve young people with whom they already work on developing intercultural skills and, in fact, who had already participated in other activities of this project. From there, a briefing was organized with young people where the project, theme and details about this activity were introduced.

Here were 3 key questions that guided the entire activity: What makes you feel at home in your city? What makes you feel unaccepted for who you really are or something that doesn’t make you feel at home in your city? What do you particularly love about your life in this city?

The second part of the process involved giving each young person the reins, giving them the freedom to take photographs with their own equipment, in their own time.

The group of young people then met to analyze the photos. Each young person selected their 3 favorite photos for this session. The discussion focused on why the photographs were chosen, what makes them meaningful and what they think about the photographs of the other group members. In this session, the expressions and words that each young person shared about their identity were collected.

Finally, the group of young people had portraits taken with a professional photographer and these portraits will have expressions and words about their identity as a backdrop. The portraits will also be part of the project’s international campaign, which is a partnership with the artist JRand which will culminate in the final event on April 16th and 17th 2024, in Sweden.

In this exhibition it will be possible to see both portraits and photographs taken by the group of young people.

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