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Finding Soul: Voice and Visibility for Youth

2008-08

Among the lead organizations that carried out the IDRC-supported study of youth and democracy in Brazil — described in accompanying articles and other resources — is the Institute for Social and Economic Analysis, or Ibase. Cândido Grzybowski, Director General of Ibase, speaks with IDRC about this groundbreaking research project.

Grzybowski: There were two reasons, two issues.

One was to address the general idea that youth are not interested in politics. A lot of people believe that young people are disengaged, but this may not be true. For example, the World Social Forum process, in fact, strongly involves Brazil’s young people. It seems that youth do participate in some forms of political action, but not in the traditional ways that our generation expects, nor in ways that politicians expect. So that was one reason for doing this research: to clarify that question.

The second reason was that Brazil’s government established a process of consultation about social and public policies, but there was no clear space for young people to participate in this process — the youth were not organized to take part. The government decided to consult with civil society organizations, trade unions, social movements, non-governmental organizations, churches, universities, and so on. But young people were not there — they had no voice, no visibility.

And so at Ibase we decided: we must look at what young people have to say about the whole of Brazil, and not just about the youth policies they want from the government. I started the discussion with IDRC based on that idea, and IDRC proposed that we use the “dialogue” method of research. I agreed, because this method allows us to have a real consultation with youth in Brazil.

IDRC: Will you please explain the dialogue method?

Grzybowski: Opinion polls are important, but they are a bit like taking the temperature of a body. Just as a thermometer doesn’t give a clear picture of a body’s overall health, a poll doesn’t get at what people are really thinking. Instead, opinion polls reveal how people are feeling at a particular moment. Often, they are influenced by what their social group happens to be saying at that time, or by what they have just seen on television, and so on.

Now, I’m not saying that this kind of information is unimportant. It is very important, but it’s not enough. The idea of the dialogue process is to start with the findings of the first phase of research — that is, the opinion poll — and to discuss these findings and improve the learning about them, and in that way to develop new knowledge.

As the young people say, they themselves are the “owners” of the research, and they build the new knowledge together. The idea is that everybody knows things. Some know one thing, others know others things, but together we can build a new kind of knowledge. This is the main idea of the method.

IDRC: What did the overall survey find? What do the results suggest about the real nature of youth and political involvement in Brazil?

Grzybowski: The first phase, the opinion poll, gave only a fragmented idea, but the dialogue phase gave us a more comprehensive idea of the same issues. The dialogues helped to clarify, to put some soul into these initial findings.

One important “finding” was the political participation of the many young people involved in this research. They said that the process of politics is fundamental for them. “We don’t believe in politicians,” they said, “but we believe in politics. And we want a new kind of politics in Brazil, a new culture of participation that can respect our concerns, that involves us as partners in the process. Let’s try to develop this.”

Here’s one way the participants proposed to develop these ideas. In Brazil, we have some institutions for youth that are not fully used by youth, like schools. Normally, when students are finished their school day, the classrooms are closed to them. Instead, why not organize the schools as a civic space? In fact, based on this finding of the dialogues, the state government of Rio de Janeiro did open the schools on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays for young people to use for their own activities. Since the only cost is for electricity and water, it was a simple decision.

It’s interesting that they are using this space for activities like hip hop. That’s not exactly school, but it’s helping build their identity. In hip hop they criticize the system and the politicians and make demands about what must be done, for example, about the corruption that they see. The young people say that the politicians only come to ask for their vote during an election, but they do not come after the election to discuss with them what they will do in the local council or in the federal parliament, and so on. These are the kind of concerns the young people express in their music.

IDRC: Has the project had an impact on government policy toward youth in Brazil?

Grzybowski: In a new program, the government provides grants for youth to continue their studies at the university level — there are maybe 200 000 young people receiving this money. As well, we have established the National Council for Youth with 40 members, half from youth and civil society, half from government. And in April 2008 there was a National Conference on Youth. So, people are coming together to discuss policy for youth.

But now we are going further. After we finished the research in Brazil we established the same kind of research and dialogue program elsewhere in Latin America. Other governments want to discuss our project with us because they want the same kind of inputs from the research — the same reference points for building youth policy.

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