Planting the seeds of planning: using arts for community engagement in Tupi, Piracicaba, Brazil

This project is about creatively building individual and organizational capacity in Tupi, a small neighborhood in Piracicaba in the interior of the State of São Paulo, Brazil. Plantando was a process of community engagement through arts conducted at Estação Travessia, a not-for-profit organization that facilitates educational processes through agricultural activities such as gardening. Youth were invited by the organization to participate in a community mapping workshop followed by an arts initiative where they were encouraged to reflect on their role as citizens, brainstorm ideas for engaging their community, and develop a livelihoods plan. The youth were also given the role of facilitators and took on the job of engaging community members in the process. The month long workshop was facilitated by artist Melanie Schambach and myself who worked as a planning consultant with Travessia. This report documents this experience and seeks to provide insights into youth’s perceptions of citizenship and agency in a rural context in Brazil. It also looks at how arts can be used as a capacity building tool to facilitate community engagement.Applied Science, Faculty ofCommunity and Regional Planning (SCARP), School ofUnreviewedGraduat