CGNK develops new partnerships in Pernambuco, Brazil
The Center for Global Nonkilling is developing a series of partnerships and initiatives in Pernambuco, Brazil, one of the most violent regions in the world. With a population of 8,734,194 at least 10 murders occur every day, generating the highest murder rate in the country. In fact, the state’s capital (Recife) homicide rate is higher than Iraq’s. Last year, over 4,500 people were murdered in Pernambuco and this year’s death toll is already over 2500.
CGNK’s Leadership Team Leader Joám Evans Pim visited Recife during the last week of August 2009 following an invitation by Professor Francisco Gomes de Matos, founding member of the Nonkilling Linguistics Research Committee and author of Nurturing Nonkilling: A Poetic Plantation. During this visit, Evans visited the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE)e, meeting Rector Amaro Henrique Pessoa Lins, Graduate Studies and Research Director Francisco S. Campos and UFPE’s University Press Director Gilda Maria Lins de Araujo.
Some of the agreements with this institution (one of the largest in Brazil with some 35,000 students and about 2,000 professor) include the publication of the Brazilian edition of Nonkilling Global Political Science in November and the co-edition of a large volume analysing Brazil’s nonkilling capabilities, that will be co-developed with the University’s Human Right Commission through its partnership with CGNK. Following the Rector’s suggestion, nonkilling will be present in this year’s Culture of Peace Week through a special seminar, following the book presentation.
CGNK is also working to establish working partnerships with the International Movement for Peace and Nonviolence, extremely active in peace education and disarmament programs across Brazil’s North-eastern regions, and PE Body Count web portal and campaign, founded by a group of journalists that for over two years have been tracking every killing in the state of Pernambuco providing details for every single occurrence.
The bi-national cultural and language center Associação Brasil América – ABA, where CGNK’s book Nurturing Nonkilling: A Poetic Plantation was launched, and Guararapes College, a higher education institution interested in promoting courses on nonkilling for their graduate and under-graduate students, where also visited by CGNK staff and are open to initiatives that will develop during the second semester of 2009.
