War in Somalia

War erupted Sunday between Somalia's transitional government forces and Islamist rebels, continuing a wave of violence.

On the last blog post, we saw how children are being trained to suicidal bombing missions, now women and children are the targets.

In this new wave of attacks in Somalia, its being clear that civilians are bearing the brunt of violence. It became a signature feature of conflicts in Africa to target the ones that have nothing to do with war. A signature feature! We use children for bombing because they draw less attention. We kill women and kids to provoke the enemy.

These days tolerance became a rare and almost unreachable word. More, it mutated to a term that doesn’t exist in our thoughts, maybe just a word of moth.... but not a word of heart.

Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991.

Obligatory Morality class

As we observe our world evolve, we can watch critical changes happen on family values, education and morality.

When my parents were expecting their first child, my mother decided to stop working so she could take care of her child’s education, even with she having a college degree and a good job. She once told me she couldn’t stand having a babysitter spending more time with her baby than she did, because she thought it was extremely important to teach her kids everything she have learned, instead of having a “strange” that she had no idea of her past taking care of their education.
And that was something most families still used to do some years ago. At least here in Brazil.

Nowadays that’s nearly impossible. The life cost is way higher now. The public schools here are terrible and many are dangerous, what makes all the families that have a chance assign their kids on private schools. The public hospitals are very bad as well, what obligates them to have a private health care plan. Baby supplies are very expensive, as is food, and so on....
Most of the families now with a little child can’t afford to have one of the parents (the mother or the father) stop working to take care of the kids.

So we have now a lot of parents that don’t have time to spend with their children. The only time they have available is at night, when both are tired, and some on the weekends. A lot of kids are being educated by the internet, television, babysitters, teachers, friends, etc. The parents don’t have time to pass to their kids their own values, morals and educate them right, what is generating, to my eyes, a lot of problems.
We can notice a lot of young girls that don’t understand the real value of a sexual relation. Some people, after graduate at high school, don’t even try to get in a college or start working on something, and decide just to live at their parents expense with no ambition in life at all. Some people haven’t learn how wrong it is to “hurt” other people (not only physically), or to don’t pay for their mistakes. And things like that.

Thinking about how important family values and morality have been to society, I don’t know why they haven’t created yet an obligatory class for all the school and college levels, with a representative number of hours, for teaching those subjects: family values and morality. That would exist to assume the role many parents aren’t being capable of assuming. The teacher should be a psychologist or psychopedagogist able to create a bond with all the students, to talk to them, to teach the importance of doing the right, of being right, of fighting for the right. Nothing theoretical, but like a group counseling. Not linked to any kind of religion at all, just showing how to be a better person and things that, in the future, will make a difference to the kids. If it’s rightly done, it would be the solution of many problems in the world.

A very special concert

This friday (Jan 16th) we are going to make a very special concert.
MindFlow will perform in front of the kids from “Casa do Zezinho”.

Casa do Zezinho is an institution with the main objective to take kids out of the streets and teach them a profession, give them home and perspective.
The institution also provides health and home assistance, physical activities and most important, it estimulates self-learning and good social behavior.
They live in a very dangerous area here in Sao Paulo surrounded by crime and like they usually say: “Here, the laws don't exist”.

We are really excited with the oportunity to maybe inspire a little bit those young kids with our music.
Most of these children haven't got the chance to see a live concert and we are really honored to give them this oportunity.

Why some kids on street are our problem others not?
Take a look at the test this institution made (at downtown Sao Paulo):


LET YOUR MINDFLOW...

To learn more about the institution, access:
http://www.casadozezinho.org.br

Music is life

Here we are... writing new songs again. It is an exciting period.
It's amazing how music can translate you into a sound and takes a really small piece of you and make it grow.
Music is the camera of the soul. Well, maybe it can take more accurate pictures because beyond the image it captures feelings, emotions and more...
When notes hit someone else’s heart it becomes something else. It grows.
I think this thought defines life: feelings and emotions occurring on an imaginary sense of time that makes us old but better. Like music!
So... I guess they were right! Music is Life!

Last week we've visited an institution called "Casa do Zezinho".
They work hard to take kids out of the streets and teach them a profession. And music is one of their classes.

On Jan 16th 2009, we are going to play a concert for these young kids and maybe with our music we can help and inspire a little bit on their beautiful work.

They are located in a place called "death triangle" because it's in the middle of three slums. According to the founder, "Tia Dag", the laws didn't arrive in there yet, and death is a common word in the kid’s vocabulary.
We hope music can erase this word from their vocabulary.

(Of course they were right. They are old and better.)
Send your life (music) to us!

LET YOUR MINDFLOW...