Simple idea - big impact

When talking about civil society or cultural diplomacy initiatives all beginnings are difficult. The people who participated on the Europe meets Latin America Forum know from personal experience that, even when you have a good team of motivated and qualified people, it is not that easy to come up with viable ideas to start a small civil society or cultural diplomacy initiative. Making the idea work afterwards is another story and even more difficult. But sometimes the simplest ideas can generate the best results.

The Brazilian architect Ruy Ohtake, an immigrant with Japanese origins, had never put one foot into a favela, until he was misquoted by a Brazilian newspaper as calling Heliópolis "the ugliest neighborhood of Sao Paolo". The inhabitants of the slum in the south of Sao Paolo immediately asked him to change something about the looks of the neighborhood if he disliked it so much. Ohtake, until then chiefly known for designing high-class hotels and the Brazilian embassy in Tokio, didn't need to be told twice.

He started a project in order to embellish Heliópolis, painting 278 houses in an initiative involving locals. The simple idea to paint a couple of houses soon generated an unexpectedly big impact: when firt results showed, Ohtake was able to collect funding for further projects. Meanwhile he has designed various housing units, a school center and three daycare facilities for the neighborhood. Additionally he was able to collect 1.000 new books for the local library donated by publishers.

As secondary effects the self-confidence of the inhabitants has grown and they finally have real perspectives to find a job and lead legal lives after the anathema of living in an 'irregular' slum has been lifted from them. The initiative is the perfect example of how to break a vicious circle of poverty, social exclusion and the emergence of slums. 

Additionally Ohtake's initiative shows that the best projects often start as very simple ideas. A reassuring thought for those of us who would like to engage in cultural diplomacy initiatives but don't know where to start. Small, apparently symbolical, gestures can change the (self-)perception of people and thus generate further change, it's just a question of getting things rolling.