All year is Carnaval

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All year round is Carnival program - © City of Montevideo
All year round is Carnival program - © City of Montevideo
All year round is Carnival program - © City of Montevideo
All year round is Carnival program - © City of Montevideo
All year round is Carnival program - © City of Montevideo
All year round is Carnival program - © City of Montevideo
All year round is Carnival program - © City of Montevideo
All year round is Carnival program - © City of Montevideo
All year round is Carnival program - © City of Montevideo

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All year is Carnaval

Status

ongoing

50%

City

Montevideo

Main actors

Local Government, NGO / Philanthropy

Project area

Whole City/Administrative Region

Duration

Ongoing since 2018

Providing cultural opportunities to adolescents deprived of their liberty.

Launched in 2018, "Todo el año es carnaval" (All year is Carnaval), is an annual program administered by the Municipality of Montevideo through the Secretariat of Education for Citizenship. The program involves artistic and creative workshops using two themes from Uruguayan Carnaval: Candombe (music) and Murga (music-theatre). The workshops focus on specific cultural topics and values and provides engagement and inclusion opportunities. Participants can develop a sense of belonging by learning from the cultural history of Uruguay.

For further information about the case study, click here.

Sustainable Development Goals

City

Montevideo, Uruguay

Size and population development

According to the 2011 census the city of Montevideo has a population of 1,319,109 (approximately one third of Uruguay’s population). The city covers an area of 201km2 with a population density of 6,726 people per km2.

Population composition

53% of the population are female and 47% male. Church and state are officially separate in Uruguay. Roman Catholic is the religion with the most followers. Other faiths include Protestant, Umbanda, Judaism and people who identify as Atheists and Agnostics. The city has a large number of European immigrants especially Spanish and Italian.

Main functions

Montevideo is the capital and largest city of Uruguay and the southernmost capital city in the Americas. The city is situated on the southern coast of Uruguay on the north-eastern bank of the Rio de la Plata with an average elevation of 43 metres.

Main industries / business

As the capital city of Uruguay, Montevideo is the economic, political and cultural centre of the country. The Port of Montevideo is one of the major ports of South America and plays a significant role in the city’s economy. Aside from trade, finance, tourism, media and education are large industry sectors.

Sources for city budget

The City of Montevideo draws its budget for public expenditure largely from property tax, fees, fines, operating revenues, other taxes and subsides from the Government of Uruguay.

Political structure

Governance is shared by the city government and the Parliament of Montevideo adhering to a decentralised political structure to enhance democratic participation.

Administrative structure

Since 2010 the city of Montevideo has been divided into 8 political municipalities referred with the letters from A-G, including CH. Each municipality is presided over by a mayor who is elected by the citizens. The city has 62 barrios, each barrio has its own identity and geographic location.

Website

http://www.montevideo.gub.uy/

The target population is adolescents and young people between the ages of 16 and 21 who are deprived of their liberty. This is a highly vulnerable population, both within and outside the penal system. In this context, the spaces for expressive and artistic development are limited, particularly within detention centres.

The general objective of this program is to provide opportunities to develop expressive and creative skills for adolescents and young people convicted by the criminal law system, through a psychosocial and educational process based on coexistence.

Specific objectives:

Create, through music and theatre, a specific socio-cultural space in a contained environment, with young people being the protagonists of their own experience.
Work with Candombe as a musical genre, as an integrating expression and an example of teamwork.
To bring young people and adolescents closer to the historical roots of Candombe and Carnaval in general.
Using the creative expression of Murga with adolescents in terms of singing, acting, percussion and make-up.

The program is managed and administered by the Secretariat of Education for Citizenship of the Montevideo City Council in cooperation with the national body responsible for young people and adolescents in conflict with the criminal law. Implementation is carried out through hiring an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) with experience in the subject matter and context. The NGO is contracted by the City Council through an open call for tenders.

The 2018 pilot included eight workshops, held over a two-month period. Each workshop ran for two hours, with groups of 10 to 15 participants. It was attended by two educators (in charge of planning and content), a guest with expertise in some of the themes of Carnaval (makeup, costumes, percussion, dance and singing) and was followed-up by a social team from the Secretariat of Education for Citizenship in order to comply with the socio-educational process.

One of the goals was to create a working environment that would provide a sense of fun, commitment and enjoyment. The workshops combine theoretical components with practical exercises to guarantee that participants remain attentive. Different forms of cultural expression are explored during the workshops (music, dance, make-up application and costume making), providing participants with an opportunity to choose their favorite mode of expression.

At the conclusion of the final workshop a performance was held. This included the participation of educators from the centers and the families of the adolescents and young people. This provided a space for empowerment, reaffirmation of self-esteem and appropriation of the experience, through which they were able to explain their personal and collective achievements to the outside world.

The program is financed entirely with resources from the Secretariat of Education for Citizenship including the participation of its own technical team. Additionally, it involves the participation of staff from the contracted NGO, Cuareim 1080 Cultural Association.

The program received a positive evaluation by the two participating institutions, considering these proposals with a socio-educational perspective as fundamental. Likewise, the adolescents and young people who participated in the project expressed interest in maintaining its continuity and requested the creation of additional spaces/programs.

Based on the results of the pilot program, a request was made for its continuation by the institution responsible for young people and adolescents in deprivation of liberty, to which the Montevideo City Council agreed. At the end of 2018 and by resolution of the Departmental Government, the program was restructured, strengthening each one of the creative areas, as well as using a new methodology: the workshops will be conducted outside the detention centers, at ENLACE, a coworking space owned by the City of Montevideo.

One challenge is to confront the institutional logics of the confinement context, which make it difficult to open up to external proposals and work teams from other institutions. It was also necessary to confront preconceptions about what the deprivation of liberty implies and the activities that are assigned to this population in this process. The promotion of cultural rights, access to leisure and recreational activities and free expression are not common within the framework of the adolescent penal system.

The objectives of the program were successfully accomplished. Through the creation of a creative-recreational space, adolescents and young people have engaged with artistic approaches that can be applied after their deprivation of liberty ends.

Due to the characteristics of the institutions involved, the context of confinement, and being a pilot program, inter-institutional coordination was somewhat complex. For the development of innovative actions, quick political and institutional will on the part of the authorities and middle managers in each of the organizations involved is fundamental. In this way, the difficulties inherent to the particular situation of this population and its context can be overcome.

http://montevideo.gub.uy/noticias/educacion/en-clave-de-convivencia