On the Road - VII

Banda Beija-Flor and social responsibility.

These underprivileged youth from the periphery of São Paulo transform their happiness and despair into rhythm and movement, choreographing their plight like hurricanes against the violence, the marginality and the social inequality, which insists to surround them.

In the beginning, they were simply a small group of at-risk kids from the urban periphery of Diadema in São Paulo, living in a high risk, deprived and violent region, just wanting to beat their drums.
Sounding like some known rhythmic beat, their desires and necessities grew along with the inconvenience caused by the limitations of that beat, uniting their dedication, pleasure and their determination to gain a better understanding of what it was they were doing. Today, their rhythms are more diverse, much more sonorous, Caribbean, African, Brazilian…

The vibrant sounds of their tin cans suffocate the shots of human hypocrisy, transforming noise into music and nightmares into dreams. The identity of their music is like a dive in search of different cultures, but also one that enchants and seduces them all, including the children under their wings.

CARF and the Hummingbird Activity Centre give them their entire support through a project that believes in positive returns from social investment.
The band is at its early stages, but we wish to begin well to end well.
Not only are they becoming great artists, they are also developing the real meaning of the popular term "youth protagonist".

Maybe the WAY the band plays is not the most important thing, even though they constantly seek perfection for each new performance, - but WHY the band plays....?
Plays to maintain their lives...
Plays to prevent evil...
Plays to play forward.
And discovers that it’s all worth while to play...
Up front!

This Video Clip of the Banda Beija-Flor’s early beginnings, was made by American teen reporters from Strive Media Institute in the USA during their visit to the Hummingbird Project in São Paulo. From this original gang were formed the youth group, Banda Beija-Flor and the Junior group, Banda Colibris.