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São Paulo – A photo exhibition portraying the lives of female refugees in Brazil opens next Monday (7th) at the café of bookstore FNAC, in São Paulo. The project Vidas Refugiadas <\/em>(Refugee Lives) features 16 pictures of eight women of various nationalities. <\/p>\n “I heard many life stories that captured my attention, and I thought it would be selfish to keep them to myself,” says the project’s author, the attorney Gabriela Cunha Ferraz, who worked in refugee-related activities in Brazil and in a humanitarian organization abroad. <\/p>\n In partnership with friend and photographer Victor Moriyama, she decided to launch the exhibit to raise awareness of the issue among Brazilians through art. “To prompt reflection on the refugee gender issue,” she says, stating her purpose. <\/p>\n According to Ferraz, refugee women and children are plenty, and she wanted to influence public policymakers into addressing the issue. According to the attorney, one of the biggest challenges when it comes to refugee women is the labor market. “The first word they learn upon arriving in Brazil is limpeza<\/em> [cleaning],” she says. <\/p>\n The women are often unable to find positions in their own lines of work, and end up getting jobs in cleaning, despite their skills. Ferraz met refugees who were anthropologists, English teachers, pedagogues, university directors and lawyers. “They have a hard time getting professional recognition,” she explains. <\/p>\n Another problem is the lack of public policies for those that are mothers. Ferraz says there’s only one project for supporting women and their children that she’s aware of. The attorney believes there should be spaces available to welcome these women, as well as social assistance and education. <\/p>\n “Although roughly 30% of refugees in Brazil are women, female refugees ultimately inherit the invisibility they are accustomed to, therefore their struggles are given less importance, their particularities are disregarded, and their femininity is ignored,” she asserts in a promotional text for the exhibit. <\/p>\n In addition to the photos, there will be two discussions on the topic. The first one will take place on the 7th, the exhibit’s opening day, at 7pm, featuring the project’s author, the National Secretary for Justice Beto Vasconcelos, the representative to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Brazil, Agni Castro Pita, and Nigeria’s Nkechinyere Jonathan.<\/p>\n The other discussion will be held on March 18th, at 7pm, also at FNAC’s café. All activities are free of charge. The exhibit will continue until the end of March, Women’s History Month, from 10am to 10pm. After its run in São Paulo, the show is set to launch in Rio de Janeiro on April 5th in a yet-to-be-announced venue. <\/p>\n Ferraz, 34, worked with asylum and migration in an international humanitarian organization in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2011 and 2012. Back in Brazil, she rendered legal services welcoming refugees in a social organization, and currently retains a public servant position in the Brazilian federal capital Brasília. <\/p>\n Refugee Lives Photo Exhibit <\/strong> *Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/strong><\/p>\n
Photos by Victor Moriyama
Project by Gabriela Cunha Ferraz
Opening on March 7th
From 10am to 10pm
FNAC, Avenida Paulista, 901 – São Paulo – SP
Free admission<\/p>\n