Dancing with thieves in São Paulo’s favelas

Jake Lloyd 0:15
This show is made possible by you, our listeners. If you like what you hear and if you want to help us tell more stories and reach more people, then from only 2 USD a month, you can become a patron of the show. Just visit patreon.com/arukahnetwork.com . Hello, I'm Jake Lloyd and welcome to How to build community, a podcast and a radio show brought to you by Tearfund's Footsteps magazine and Arukah network.

In this episode, you're going to hear a story from São Paulo in Brazil, a story so remarkable that at the time of recording this, it's being made into a movie. It's about a lady who started a drama project in the Brazilian prison in which she worked, a project in which youth offenders re-enact the crimes that put them in prison in the first place. But crucially, they don't play themselves.

Cally Magalhães 1:02
They have to go into the role of the victim or that victim's family or the police officer who arrested them. And the penny drops inside them and they just like they say, I just realise now, you know what I'm doing? I'm doing something so wrong I want to change. It's absolutely amazing.

Jake Lloyd 1:21
That's the voice of Cally Magalhães, who is a theatre practitioner and director of the Eagle Project and who's written about her work in a book called Dancing With Thieves, on which the movie will be based. Now, this psychodrama project, as it's called, is seeing rates of reoffending among these boys and young men reduce by as much as 80%. And in this episode, she tells me the full story. So keep listening and you'll hear Kelly explain what psychodrama is. She'll tell me how she's been using it with young offenders who are often guilty of violent crimes. You'll learn how drama and the arts can help people develop empathy. You'll learn the crucial difference between restorative justice and punitive justice. And Kelly will share with you some advice if you'd like to learn more about how psychodrama might be used in your community. But I began by asking Kelly, what is psychodrama and how did she get involved in it?

Cally Magalhães 2:28
I was already working in the youth prisons in San Paolo and we were doing individual counselling with the boys and to an extent it was working, it was going okay. But I think out of desperation, the staff in the youth prison began to give us boys that had really, really serious problems, psychopaths and that kind of thing. And as we're a small project, we just didn't have the funding, we didn't have the way to be able to help them properly with with psychiatrists and everything. And so often the boys would be released and as most of them were street kids, we didn't have our own rehab or anything like that. So we would take them to two rehabs and they would just stay for a couple of days and then they'd jump over the wall and run away. And I just began to get really frustrated. And I just so wanted something radical for the for the boys, something that would help them while they were in the youth prison to prepare themselves for that, for their release and going back into the big, wide world. And so I began to pray and I said, 'Lord, I just Iwant something that will really, really help them. And I so wanted to use drama because I'm a professional actress and drama teacher, and I just really felt that drama would be a way of helping them. And a friend from Milton Keynes who worked in the Milton Keynes prison, she sent me a book about the theatre company who are a company in Birmingham, and they work with prisoners doing psychodrama workshops and plays and so I read this book and it was a eureka moment, you know, and I just thought, Oh, this is fantastic, because psychodrama basically what we do is so we work with groups and we begin our sessions with them, just helping them to gel as a group, getting to know them, getting to know their, their feelings, their stories, that kind of thing. And then we put them into scenes, so we put them into improvisations. It's all made up on the spot, but they have to go into the role of the victim or their victim's family or the police officer who arrested them or their mum or their kids. You know, some of them are 16, 17-year-olds, but they've already got one or two kids. And it literally is transformational. I joke that it's like a rewiring of their brain, but they literally when they're lying on the ground in the prison on the floor and they're in the role of the victim who's just been shot, you know, in a mugging or whatever. But it's like it's like something the penny drops inside them and they just like they say, I just realised now you know what I'm doing? I'm doing something so wrong, I want to change it. It's absolutely amazing.

Jake Lloyd 5:35
So, tell us how you got it started in the prison then.

Cally Magalhães 5:40
So we were already working as a team in the prison, doing the individual counselling. And so when I discovered the psychodrama, I at the same time discovered restorative justice, which is a completely different way of looking at justice instead of punishing and excluding the person, locking them up and throwing away the key. It's a way of helping them to be restored, helping their victim also. So I decided to put these two methods together and wrote a new project called Breaking the Chains and presented it to the youth prison where we were working and said, 'Could we do a pilot project when we try it with a group'? And so we started at that time and they said to me, 'Do you want to work with the first time offenders or do you want to work with the serial and extremely serious offenders'? And I said, 'I want to work with the serious'. And it's extremely serious to re-offend because they're the ones that really need the help. Because if they don't change now, they're either going to go from the youth prison straight into the adult prison or they're going to be murdered, you know? And so there's a real need there. And so we began the pilot project and we're now on 26 group and our results are really, really amazing because in general, the boys, they stay in prison for a year, year and a half, two years, up to three years. And then they come out and then usually within the first or second months, they re-offend and are back in again. And our projects, we were around about 70 to 80% not re-offending if they do at least ten sessions of psychodrama, the ones that do two, three, four sessions, sometimes they're they're released, you know, too early. Like we ask for boys that are not released, not going to be released for at least three or four months so that we can get a good ten, 12 sessions with them. The boys that are released after doing two, three, four sessions, sadly, either they're murdered or go to prison. So we see a real difference in those that take part in the project. And the other thing that we do, which is quite unusual here, is that we accompany the boy and his family afterwards. So we help them to do courses. We help them to get in to work. We help them with food parcels, with documents, whatever they need in order to not re-offend. We will help them if it means buying them a pair of trainers so that they can go for an interview instead of going in their flip flops. Then we'll buy them a pair of trainers who buy them a pair of night care, you know, will buy them just a decent pair of trainers so that they can get to that interview, have some dignity and get the job. And so will offer them support in whatever way we possibly can. If they want to, we helped them. Then we say to them the first session we do with them, we say to them, This isn't a course, this is the beginning of a friendship, and we want to walk with you. We want to help you in whatever way we possibly can. We're not going to do it for you. But if you need help and you want to change and you want to leave your life of crime behind and start a different future, then we're with you. And they look at us and they say, No one's ever said that to me in my life. You know, they're so abandoned in so many ways by society, by their family. And, you know, they're just most of them are black poor. They live on the outskirts of the city that their mum's an alcoholic. They don't have a father. There's just drug trafficking all around them. And they say to us, you know, I have two choices. I can work in the car wash and I'm going to earn the equivalent of like 18 £90 a month, six days a week, working really, really hard to wash cars for six days a week and earn that much money. Or I can work in drug trafficking and I'll end that in one night, you know, and so a project really helps them to dream of, of a different future to if they want to be a dentist, if they want to be a barbers, they want to be a vet. If they want to be an engineer or anything, you know, we say to them, you know, you've got a dream, big dreams, because this isn't the plan that God has for you. You know, there's a much better plan for your life than just the circle of crime and violence and prison.

Jake Lloyd 10:49
Taught me through a typical session. And it's just then about what you say to them at the beginning. What does a typical session then look like?

Cally Magalhães 10:59
Okay. So they all come in to the room. We sit in a circle and we begin with passing an object around the circle, and each one shares how they're feeling as they arrive at the session. So they have a tendency just to just say, I'm fine, I'm at peace, you know, I'm hot, you know, like that. But we encourage them to try and explain how they're feeling. The reason we do that is because the prison is often not a very easy place to be. There's often difficult situations. Maybe one of them has lost a relative. And one of the worst things is obviously is if you're in prison and somebody dies and you can't go to the funeral. And here in Brazil, people are buried very quickly. They're buried the same day or the next day. So, you know, often the boy's relative dies and he doesn't even get a chance to say his goodbyes and all that stuff. So they'll come into the session and sometimes they're very pent up. You can see that things aren't good. And if we arrive saying, oh, hello, everybody, we are going to do a session on anger today. And, you know, we need to know where they're at. And so it's really good. And it's also an opportunity for them to know how we're feeling as well as a team because, you know, sometimes I'll say are having a difficult situation at home with my sons or my colleague. Whoever I'm working with has an opportunity and they see that, you know, we have real lives, too, you know, and that's not all easy outside the prison and difficult inside, you know. And so we do that then we usually do a game. Well, I mean, I'm always just overwhelmed by how the boys take part. They're like 17, 18, 19-year-olds, hardened criminals, and they'll play bunnies and zip zap and duck and goose. And, you know, it's just like, yeah, we get away with these kind of games. They're just so lovely. They take part with such enthusiasm, so and so we do this, do that as a game to sort of get them, you know, moving around or waking up a bit. And then depending on what's happened in the first circle. So if something comes out of that circle that we realised needs to be looked at during the session, let's say something's happened and then they're very frustrated. And as a psychodrama therapist, you have to be very spontaneous. And so you just like you drop whatever idea you did come to the session where then you go with an activity about frustration or put them into scenes about frustration or whatever. So the session will change that. We've written a manual and we have like basically ten sessions up our sleeves. So I'll give you an example. One of the sessions that we do is about the victims, and it's not a session that we do at the beginning. We usually leave it for sort of one of the last sessions when they're really quite sort of warmed up and able to really delve deep into the situations. And so we'll talk to them about victims and we say who are the victims in society and all that kind of thing. We do a brainstorm or whatever. Then we'll talk about when we were in a situation, when we were a victim, when we felt victimised, and then I encourage them. Whoever is leading the session encourages them to bring a victim to the circle. So I always say, try and bring one of your actual victims of someone that you've, you know, held up at gunpoint or whatever. Try not to make it your cousin that you nicked his kite when you were five, whoever, because it won't be as effective, you know. So I have my notebook with me and they don't notice. But what I do is so let's say there's a boy called Bruno, and so he starts and he says, okay, so it was night time and I saw a lady coming out of car park and I put a gun against my head and I stole her handbag, and she panicked and I hit her, whatever, you know. So he'll say this, whatever happened. So I'll write Bruno in my notebook, and then I'll say to him, okay, do. Do you know the name of the victim? He says, no. So I say, okay, give this lady a name. So he says, okay, Maria. So I write down Maria next to Bruno. And I said, 'What age is she'? Oh, I think she was about 55. Okay, fine. So then go on to the next person. And so each person brings a victim and then suddenly, without them realising, I say, okay, good morning, everybody. My name is Vanessa and I'd like to welcome you today to this self help group for victims. And I know it's really, really difficult for you to come today and share your stories. The trauma that you've been through. But I just want to really thank you. And I want to explain that, you know, why I started this group. And it was because I had a very, very difficult situation in my life. My 15-year-old son was involved in a, you know, mugging. He was held up at gunpoint and they shot him. And so after his death, I just I was so angry. I struggled so hard. And it was just I just didn't know what to do. And I ended up going along to a group like this for four victims. And it just helped me so much. And so I decided to start a group as part of the organisation that I went to. And, and this is my colleague and her name is Deborah, and she'd like to share her story. And so Deborah shares her story. And so she obviously, you know, has something happened to her husband or whatever. And then I turn to Bruno, who is the first on my list, and I say to him, So, 'Mario, I'd like to say thank you for coming today. And could you share with us why you're here'? And so he, in the role of his victim, shares all that happened that night when she was held up at gunpoint and her handbag was stolen and the things she lost. And now she has panic attacks and he has to say all that in the role of his victim. And we all will all around the circle, each one doing that. And it's absolutely amazing thing because they really do it. You know, you'd think that they wouldn't wouldn't get involved, but they really, really take part. And then at the end, every time we do anything like that, so if we do scenes or whatever, we always have a time of sharing at the end, which is where they have an opportunity to either share how they felt in the role of whoever they played or if it was a scene where they were in the audience, they were able to watch and take in something and be moved by what they saw. And this session is absolutely transformational. It's like afterwards they say, 'I never, ever realised the consequences. You know, I've never thought about my victims in this way'. And so it's really powerful that's like a typical sort of thing that might happen in one of the sessions.

Jake Lloyd 18:47
So prior to this interview, I read a chapter from your book and you gave another case study. This guy Alexander, who had been involved in stealing motorbikes. And there's a quote in your book where he said, that day when I did the scene of me on the motorbike, but as the owner, not the robber, I couldn't sleep that night. I realised that I needed to change or I'd be in prison the rest of my life or dead. It is this ten session course that you have. Do you feel like it does everything really build up to this moment of drama, whether they're playing these different roles or is it all the other steps just as important as each other?

Cally Magalhães 19:35
Yeah, because it's interesting, isn't it, Alexandra? He had this insight while he was sitting on the motorbike in the scene when he was the victim and the guys were pointing their guns at his head. He had his moment of insight where he realised what he was doing and that he needed to stop. But I remember one time we did a scene where two boys held up a motorist and ended up shooting him and one of the boys was sitting in the audience and he said to me, 'Cally, can I swap pen?' And I said, yes, swap in. And he went into the role of the guy that just shot the motorist and they turned around and he said to me, 'Swap me in too late. It's too late now. He's dead. You swap me too late, you know'. And so it's like he had the insight sitting there in the audience, you know? And I remember one of the boys that's mentioned in the book who he's now qualified as a radiologist and was in prison for from 14 to 18 years of age. And he had his moment of insight when a person in the circle who was one of the members of staff, actually, we tried for four, four years not to have any members of staff in the session with us because the boys wouldn't be as open as they we would like them to be able to share, you know, really, really that all their grunge and so obviously if they've got member of staff they feel more restricted. But it was something that came from the administration, from the top that we had to have someone in the session. So she was in the session that day and she shared about how when some burglars broke into her house and stole the video game and she said she shared about how her sons were just absolutely devastated. You know, they came home and someone had stolen the video game and WALLACE He turned to me and he said, oh, that's what I used to do, you know? And it was like that was just hearing her story was enough for him to want to change, you know, so each person has their own, own moment of insight or not, you know, some of them come out of the prison and continue in crime. And we have really sad story of a boy who was absolutely lovely type took part so well, came out the prison was working in a car park and had a lovely girlfriend and was just everything was going fine and we'd agreed as a project to pay his driving licence because you can't work in a car park unless you've got a driving licence. And so he was working, you know, kind of illegally. And so, you know, he was really excited that he was going to learn to drive and then he got this phone call from a criminal who invited him to go with them on the crime. And he ended up being murdered by the police. And the saddest, saddest thing was giving the money that was meant to be for his driving lessons to his mum to pay for the coffin. You know, that's just the absolute reality of all of our work. You know, I say to the boys, you know, that when we're doing our project development and, you know, we're trying to get funding or whatever, we have to say how many out of ten are not going to re-offend? And, you know, the youth prison director said to me, if you can get three out of ten to not re-offend, I'll be ecstatic. And I'm like I say to them, three out of ten, that means you three are going to be okay. You seven are going to die or go to prison. I say to them, I don't accept that. No, no, you're precious. You're you're you've got so much potential. You're wonderful people. You've yeah, you've you've been in crime and that's in your past. But it can be in your past. You know, you don't have to continue doing these things the rest of your life, you know. Yeah. So I have a, I have a picture as you talk, I have a picture in mind the almost describe a road to Damascus moment of this realisation, a moment of insight, you call it where people don't know they're seeing the consequences of their actions and that why do you I hope this isn't too broad or naive a question or something, but why do you think they've not had this moment sooner? I think it's because they come from situations where it's just so normal. You know, the last session we had with the boys where we did the victims, where they brought the victims, two of them are in prison for homicide. You know,  they've killed at the age of 16. They've they've killed. And when you talk to them about it, it's like it's almost normal. You know, if the victim reacts, if the victim gets a gun out, you know, they shoot them, you know, and it's like they've just been brought up in such poverty and such a, you know, a community of this kind of behaviour. It's almost normal for them. And they have this mentality, as I say, you know, of either it's the car wash or drug trafficking. They don't they don't have any stimulation to dream big dreams. And that's what we really try and help them do, because they've come from a background where nobody in their family has ever been to university. Nobody in their family has ever done anything except work in crime. And so I think that's part of the reason. The other reason is, is that when they do the mugging or the burglary or the shooting or whatever, they don't hang around to look at the victim to see if they've died or to see if they're okay. They run because they know they're going to be either put in prison or murdered. And so I think the psychodrama is, like I say, it's a rewiring of their brain. It's almost like the wires in their brain have been detached. It's like that thing of like I'm not going to even go down that route of wondering whether my victim died or wondering whether my victim's okay or whether, you know, it's like it's survival mode and then the psychodrama brings it home, you know, it really, really does. And Alexander, who's the hairdresser now, he goes with us to the youth prison and he does talks and he does like hairdressing workshops to show the boys what he does. And I mean, he went the week before last. And we've now got a really big problem because all the boys in the prison want to take part in our project and they'll admit they don't want to do anything. They don't want to do school, they don't want to do courses, they don't want to do anything. But we have the absolute joy of when we start a new group. We have boys shaking the prison bars outside saying, Why can't I be in the group? I want to be in the group. I know the boys in the circle looking at each other, thinking, wow, this must be great. And, you know.

Jake Lloyd 26:55
That's so interesting because I had written down, I was thinking of what questions I wanted to ask you. I'd written down because I'd try to put myself in this situation. And I imagine you'd have all sorts of obstacles for these young lads to getting involved. But you described in the actually they're just that they can't wait to get involved. Did that happen immediately or is that just slowly built up over time?

Cally Magalhães 27:33
No, it didn't happen immediately at all. And it was really hard at first. And part of the reason was because the prison staff didn't really generally choose the boys very well. We have a we have a fairly sort of rigid idea of what kind of boy we would like to participate. The main thing is that he has to have even 1% desire to change, you know, there are some boys that they'll say, I don't want to change. I want a continuing crime. I'm not going to I'm not going to stop. You know, so we we asked for boys that are expressing at least some interest. I have to say, Alexander didn't want to change and he came and he did so like but most of them do have a little bit of an idea of something different for their life. The other thing is, is that we asked for boys that have at least are literate because some of the boys that they're like 17, 18-year-olds, they can't read or write. And that's really, really difficult because then it's hard to get them into courses and hard to get them in to work. And the other thing is, is that we asked for a boy that at least has an aunty or a neighbour or someone that can have him to live with them so that they don't go back to the street because, you know, it's so hard to accompany on them afterwards if they're living on the street, although we would love to help the street boys. You know, it's just it's too it's too complicated to find them in a city of 20 million people. So those are the sort of three, three categories that we ask for. And so at the beginning, the staff, they would sort of just give us boys that weren't really interested, whatever. And so it was harder at the beginning. But now we've built up a momentum.

Jake Lloyd 29:15
On this show. We often talk about, you know, often the most sustainable community projects are ones that are locally led and led by people who are from a place. Now, I know you obviously live in São Paulo. It's your home. But, you know, we can tell by your voice that your you didn't grow up there. And I just wonder. So you're on some level, you're an outsider. Do you see that as a help or a hindrance in the work that you do?

Cally Magalhães 29:49
Yeah, that's a really good question, Jake. So I am the only foreigner on the team. My whole team are Brazilians. And I always worry about, you know, I'm 57 and I think, oh, you know, I wonder if I'm relevant, you know, to the boys and stuff like that. But it's just something about this is what my team say anyway. I say something about you going and just loving them so much and it's like they just feel so, so blessed, so cherished that they say to us, Why did you come here? I just can't understand why you would come and help us. And, you know, don't you want to stay in your house and sit on your sofa instead of coming here in the boiling hot sun or the rain or whatever? And I say to them, I say, if I can just help one of you, my life's worth it. I can die tomorrow. If I can just help one person to change their life. You know, my book starts with the phrase, you know, it's impossible for one person to change the world, but you can change the world for one person. And that's so. So how I feel, you know, and I always say it's not a job, it's a privilege. I feel like I was born to do what I do and wouldn't change what I do for anything I just it is just unbelievable. But I have to say, the boys are absolutely amazing. I think society has this idea that they're just delinquents and they can't even sit on the chair and you know, they're rude or whatever and they're just that putty in our hands and you know, like so respectful or like when I sometimes I lean against the chalkboard and I've got chalk on my back, you know, my cap on my t shirt, and they'll come up and say, Oh, Donna Kelly, Donna is like a very polite way of saying, you know, so orders like they wouldn't just call me Kylie and they say, oh, you've got some chalk on your back. I'm asked on a visit to, to clean it off. You know, they wouldn't come out and sort of like knock it off for me. You know, they who so respectful is unbelievable really. And then when they leave the prison and they're just so, so blessed when we take them through parcels and, you know, they just yeah, it's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful to be able to help.

Jake Lloyd 32:09
How long does your support, your relationship with these boys continue? You know, once they're out of prison.

Cally Magalhães 32:17
Well, it's supposed to be two years. But the problem is, is that, you know, they become sons. And so, you know, sons don't last for two years. So you just you know, you become their you become their best woman or whatever, their wedding and the dedication of their children. And, you know, they just stay there with you forever, really. So the idea is to accompany them very, very closely in the first few months, because that's the critical time if they're going to re-offend. You know, they've come out of the prison where in flip flops, no underwear, no cell phone, no money. You know, they're not going to put on a suit and get their CV together. What they're going to do, they're going to go out and commit a crime in order to put food on the plate, because many of them come from huge families, you know, like loads of brothers and sisters. They get back to their little shack in the slum and, you know, mum's drunk on the bed and their little brothers and sisters are filthy, dirty and crying because there's no food. And they'll just go out and rob somebody, you know, to get some, some money. So we help them intensively in the first few months. And then as they begin to find their feet and become more self-sustainable, we have less contact. But you know, with WhatsApp it's fantastic because you just like we always used to say, you can phone reverse charge isn't you know, we don't need to worry about just people WhatsApp us all the time and we just say, you know, I remember one time a boy was released from the prison and in the first week, you just some are saying, 'Cally, Cally, please help me. I'm going to go and do something. I'm going to do a crime'. And, you know, just went straight to his house, took a food parcel, helped him, you know, because you just see it's desperation. So if we can help just in that initial stage, it's really, really important. And then, you know, we're going to organise a graduation ceremony for Walace because he couldn't graduate because of the pandemic. So his university didn't do a graduation. So we're going to do that. And, you know, it's just this many, many joyous moments with them as well that we can take part in, you know, when their children are born and that kind of things just it's just such a joy to be part of their lives and see their lives turned around.

Jake Lloyd 34:43
And written down this question. Are you ever scared? It doesn't sound like you are.

Cally Magalhães 34:52
To be honest with you, I feel a lot safer in the prison than I do out on the roads or, you know, the crazy traffic or that kind of thing. And also, you know, when we go to visit in the favelas, that they're very dangerous places to be. But you just have to be very wise. So you let them know that you're coming. And so they let the people in charge of the favela. No, you know, at the entrance and you drive in with your window down, smiling with your Bible on the seat next to you, you know, that kind of thing. So they automatically know you're not there to cause any trouble. Or so I walk into any will drive into any favela with no fear at all. Really, because they know me as Cally he missionary or Kelly from associate. So I guess the project you know.

Jake Lloyd 35:40
I'd like to look to the future a bit now. You sound incredibly youthful and energetic, and it sounds like you've got decades left in you. But, do you see this project continuing in where you are in São Paolo for decades to come and also the impact of this sounds phenomenal those stats on re-offending and how that's how that's reduced. Is this something that can be rolled, you know, globally? Can it work with adults, too? Yeah. Just give me a sense of what the future looks like for this work.

Cally Magalhães 36:17
Yeah, I have a big vision. I don't think the Eagle Project is going to end up sort of like, you know, World Vision or anything like that. But I have a vision for various things. One of the things that we've just been invited to do is to actually work with the prison staff. So to do these psychodrama workshops. But with the staff members, there's about 500 prison staff in the state of Sao Paolo. That's a huge area that they want us to work with. And we're going to start a pilot project in February because the suicide rate among prison staff is so high. And so they really need this kind of this kind of group. So, of course, if you work with the staff, then you're not going to only help the boys or help the adults in the prison, but you're actually going to help the whole environment because hopefully the staff will become behave more, more restorative lay, you know, less punitively. And that's major. Another thing that is my dream is that we would be part of the strategic plan of the training of the police force in Sao Paolo or even the whole of Brazil, because it's very military, it's very punitive. So I'm more scared of the police here than I am of the Banjidas know, because they're just so aggressive. And if we could help them with their anger, with their way of dealing with people, that would just be so awesome, too. So, yeah, that's sort of part of what we'd love to do. Obviously, I would love this work to spread through Brazil throughout the world. I think there are some things happening around the world with psychodrama in prisons, but I think that could be so much more. So yeah, I'm excited about the future. We actually have in the prison where we work at the moment, there are actually 17 youth prison units with about 60 boys in each unit. And I met the director of these 17 units at the gate the other day and she said to me, I would just love to have this project in all these 17 units a moment where in three. So that would be just unbelievable. It'd be a dream to be able to work in many more prison units. A boy in the youth prison costs the government about £2,000 a month. Our project to work with ten boys for ten sessions and accompany four of those boys afterwards costs £3,000. So when you think about it, our project is not expensive. It is a, you know, it's a really, really cheap way of transforming lives compared to what the government is doing, which, you know, obviously the staff do their best or whatever. But, you know, I believe that we've got something that really, really works and the prison staff really believe it works. They see a huge transformation in the boys just in the in the whole, you know, as the sessions roll out, they see the boys behaving differently in the youth prison before they even leave, you know. So, with right funding and the right help, how we could actually grow a lot. And that's my hope and my prayer.

Jake Lloyd 39:57
Well, there's a lot to digest there. And just before we go, so people listening to this, see, been inspired by what they've heard and like the sound of having something similar where they live. What would you say to them? Where's the best place to start?

Cally Magalhães 40:14
Yeah, I mean, if you want to work with groups, I think drama, psychodrama theatre is a fantastic way to reach people, young people. I think the arts in general, music workshops or dance, there's so many different ways that we can reach out. And I would say to people, get training. I mean, I was interested in psychodrama. And so I did an initial course here in San Paolo, which was just once a week for eight weeks, so it's just eight sessions. But then I did a postgrad in Portuguese. Oh, I nearly died! I had to write a thesis, 21,000 words. I nearly thought my brain was going to be scrambled, but I did it. It was two, two years training in psychodrama to be able to really lead the workshops well and stuff. So I would say to people, you know, wherever, wherever you are, what country you are, there's so much stuff online nowadays that is available, even psychodrama courses online. I've already been a leader in one of those and it isn't as good obviously, but it is possible to do psychodrama online. So I'd say to people, Yeah, look, look for training, look for courses, you know, work out how you can best help the people in your community. And yeah, and if anybody wants to talk to me, if you can make available my, my email or whatever, Jake, I'm more happy to, to help people if they're interested.

Jake Lloyd 41:53
Brilliant. Yeah, we can do that. We can do that. Great. Cally, we'll leave it there. That's fantastic. Thank you so much.

Cally Magalhães 42:00
Thank you, Jake.

Jake Lloyd 42:01
That was Cally Magalhães who runs the Eagle Project in Brazil. And you can learn more about the project by buying her book Dancing with Thieves, which you can find online. And if you search for the Eagle Project on Facebook, then you can find out more about Cally's work and find her contact details.

That's almost it for this episode, but before we go. Don't forget you can catch up on previous episodes of How to build community on our SoundCloud page or in your podcast player. Just Search 'How to build community'. You can find out more about Tearfund's Footsteps magazine, the website learn.tearfund.org . You can help support this show by making a small monthly donation on our Patreon page, by going to patreon.com/arukahnetwork and Arukah is spelt A-R-U-K-A-H. You can learn more about Arukah on the website arukahnetwork.org  .  And finally, if you have some feedback on this show or suggestions for future interviewees, then you can reach me by email [email protected]. That's it for this episode. Until next time. Bye for now.