Young participants at the first edition of the Territorial Forum, held in Jardim Campo Belo, Campinas, on 24 August 2024
On 23 November 2024, Casa de Cultura Aquarela, in the south-west of Campinas-SP, hosted the third edition of the Youth Forum 2024. The event focused on the leadership of Black young people and on the discussion of mental health, offering a space for young people to share their lived experience and challenges. The initiative reaffirms the importance of listening to young people, prompting reflection on the structural impacts that affect mental health, especially in the peripheries and among Black youth.
Active Listening and Leadership
The event was guided by active listening, reflected in participation formats that allowed those present to express themselves safely and critically. The listening involved not only the young people but also the territory and the potential of this group, which faces both marginalisation and the effects of the erosion of public health policy.
Although the focus was mental health, the debate underlined that this subject cannot be separated from the structural questions affecting Black and peripheral young people. The space allowed listening and critical thinking to move together, enabling in-depth discussion of challenges and possible solutions.
Challenges and Solutions
The guiding questions — “On a scale of 0 to 10, how is your mental health?”, “What is affecting your mental health right now?” and “When was the last time you went to therapy?” — served as a starting point for rich discussions. Through anonymous answers written on sticky notes, the young people shared vulnerabilities, offering striking accounts that quickly reached beyond what the question seemed to ask.
Among the challenges were the stigma surrounding mental health in the peripheries, loneliness, the lack of spaces for sharing and limited access to psychological health services. Participants also pointed to the impact of the capitalist system and of social structures that neglect Black and peripheral young people, reinforcing inequality and worsening mental health problems.
The debates also showed that art and culture are essential tools for easing mental suffering and giving new meaning to pain. As Emicida puts it in his song “Levanta e Anda”:
“Life is crazy, brother, life is crazy / Always imagining the bursting of this bubble.”
Cultural expression became a space of strength and resistance, allowing Black young people to create new meanings for the adversities they face.
Culture and Organising to Burst the Bubble
The event featured the artist Joana Black, who shared her path and presented poems bringing sensitive and necessary reflections on mental health and structural racism.
Gabriel José, founder of the Mente Sã project, discussed the importance of approaching mental health in an integrated way, taking into account the particularities of peripheral young people. His account of the challenges and lessons of creating the project was a call to action, while also underlining the need to question the structural absences that run through the field of mental health in Brazil.
Conclusion and Perspectives
In the final stage, participants were divided into groups to draw up proposed solutions both in the field of public policy and in everyday practices of care and community support. This moment fostered the active participation of young people in drafting proposals and strengthened their sense of belonging, working on the building and widening of repertoires and imaginaries in which taking part in the design of social and public solutions becomes part of the path of Black and peripheral young people and of the different groups historically pushed to the margins.
Once again the Forum fulfilled its role of listening, raising awareness and provoking, acting as a catalyst for structural change. With a focus on strengthening the social participation of Black and peripheral young people, the event restated the urgency of discussing, together with young people, the importance of guaranteeing access to basic rights and essential care.
Written by:
Débora Cristina da Paz Manager of the Youth Forum 2024 Project
With rapporteur contributions from:
Jefferson Rodrigues Young leader of the Youth Forum 2024 governance committee
References
- Emicida. Levanta e Anda. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZgnl5Ocuh8.
- IBGE. Information on youth and homicides. Available at: https://prp.unicamp.br/inscricao-congresso/resumos/2021P19115A35333O5527.pdf.