Making cultural bonds with kites and tops

There was a huge story this past weekend in the Times about how important it is for kids to have creative play; I'm planning to read it next weekend when I'm all done with some work projects (yes, I think that's funny, too). In the meantime, it made me think this is a great time to tell you about an amazing Brazil-based team that builds cultural bridges between kids by sharing how they play.

Projeto BIRA is two researchers: Renata Meirelles and Dave Reeks. [Ed. note: I went to college with Dave; he met Renata on a trip to Brazil in 2000; now they're married and have a super cute kid. You can see their photo on our Peace and Love Map.]

In 2001, Dave and Re made connections with people working in the Amazon Region, packed up some camping gear, and embarked on an eight-month trip to introduce themselves to 16 riverside and indigenous communities. They met the kids who live there, played with them, learned about their games and how they make their toys -- you can see in the video kids making tops, boats, kites, and more -- and they shared games and toys they'd already learned about. Then, using video Dave shot on the trip, the team began sharing with kids in Brazil and the U.S. They opened up a cultural exchange among kids on an international scale.

Dave made a short and wonderful English-language video that shows what they do better than my words can ever say. And Renata published a Portuguese-language book about games and toys from the Amazon and the rest of Brazil just last year, called Giramundo. (By the way, they're looking for a U.S. publisher.)

Since that first trip, Renata and Dave have returned to the river communities, showing the short documentaries they put together (some have won film festival awards) and deepening the cultural exchange. Theirs is one of my favorite world-changing projects ever, not just because I got to meet some of the kids in the river communities when I went to visit Dave and Re in 2005, but because the project does two things I love most in efforts to heal the world: It demonstrates how important kids are in creating new bonds between cultures and countries, and it uses media -- the films -- to help make those bonds.

Now, go play :)