Harambe
Post on 23-Jun-2015
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A Way Of Life And An Experience InSustainability And Governance.
Outlined by the photographs in this presentation, Harambe is an ideal
shaped by the writer Dirceu Borges and published as a novel in the 70’s.
The beautifully photographed images are the scenarios that unravel
before the
reader’s eye of
a book, Dirceu
Borges’s “What
are you going
to do in
December?”.
Borges’s ideological fiction used the acknowledgement of failure from
systems supposed to give care for the old age as material to build a
revolutionary model of a community designed not only to give people
proper care and
shelter in the last
years of their lives,
but also dignity,
identity, freedom,
love and
happiness.
Harambe goes further than just acknowledging the failure of proper care
and for pointing out the failure in our society to give old age a dignified
place as it’s social image is distorted.
It is said that
a good
measurement
of the quality
of a society is
the care given
to their
elderly.
Harambe brings this saying to another level as
it is a formula that offers the old age opportu-
nity to take destiny in ones own hands so
people can empower themselves to get the
care and the life they choose best for them-
selves.
Harambe believes the main reason for the ex-
clusion of the elderly from social processes
is their lack of participation in the production
processes.
An important tenet of Harambé is the
belief that old age is a period in life in which the individual has equally
as much to offer as in preceding stages of life since he has progressed
much further on the path of life experiences.
Therefore it is seen as a period in which someone has an enhanced
ability to discern what is good for himself without taking undue
advantage of others or the environment.
The characters in the
novel “What are you going
to do in December?”
envisioned more than just
a place to live well. Their
search was a life style
that would give them
conditions to create their
own happiness and well
being.
For this reason,
Harambe is a more than a place, it is a life situation where people living
in the state of Harambe gather to empower each other using the
experience, knowledge and skills learned in their life path.
Many years after he had written the novel, Dirceu Borges was
approached by two women who had had a dream to live their old days
in an alternative way but they didn’t know exactly how. After reading his
novel they knew
that described
in there was
this place they
wanted to build.
They discovered
they had always
dreamed of
Harambe.
And so, they offered their 68 hectare farm in a small picturesque village
in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Peiropolis is today a touristic area. The village has had a chalk stone
quarry later interdicted by an English paleontologist because there were
found dinosaur bones from aproximately 65 to 80 billion years ago. The
local modernized museum and the replica in real size of a apatossaurus
atracts many tourists.
Peiropolis is also the home of Fundacao Peiropolis, an institution that
gives training to people working in education aiming for a culture of
peace and there is also the permanent Exposition of “Human Values”.
Surrounding Harambe is an area known in Brazil as “cerrados” .
This describes a climate that has traditionally allowed the agriculture,
and in Harambe there are pioneer cultures as the “neen” (a tree that
comes from India), to carry several therapeutic possibilities.
This all in at 12 km from a major regional city of 287.760 inhabitants
called “Uberaba”.
That is the décor where Dirceu’s romance has been brought to life, with
the idea of being a seed of a social innovation that is able to replicate
itself.
Lets not forget that the estimates tell us in 2050 the population of
people in advanced age will be 4 times as much as it is today 5,1% of
the global population.
To have this expectation be unaccompanied by expectations of
depressing statistics excluding old age of beautiful and fulfilling life, we
need to let old paradigms go and believe maturity is able to take with
itself the desire of be a protagonist and part of the social and productive
networks.
The project’s name-
Harambe - is chosen
because it means “lets work
together”, an expression
used in Kenya when they
were fighting for their coun-
try’s independence.
Blessed by its topography
and the natural resources of
the farmland, Harambe has been able to realize its goal of sustainability
with an organic agriculture.
It hosts a garden of medicinal herbs considered by the brazilian Health
and Food Administration as an example of quality and productivity, and
the production of aprox 1000 neen a month.
This is a beautiful place that has been taken care of with endless love
and lots of work. It has a wonderful climate, healthy air and mineral
water. Its ground is fertile and it is surrounded by lakes filled with fish,
2 forests and it faces 2 different groups of mountains.
Harambe has worked on its infrastructure to stimulate and enhance
wellness and productive work, it has instalations for health care and its
houses are planned by architects that focused on comfort and security
for people of age.
The residences are set
in blocks of 6 houses,
called ‘pueblos’ or in
independent chales.
Harambe´s philosophy is that a human be-
ing needs to maintain themself in an active
way executing work that he or she likes to
perform, feeling happy and keep on being the
protagonist of his or her own life and
history.... it is a life style.
Harambe offers peace and tranquility but not isolation of the world. It is
within 500 metres of Peiropolis, a village that is continuously visited by
researchers of the Paleontologist Association of Brazil, and tourists.
The one that lives in Harambe has still participation in social life,
contributing with experience in the with young
people and participating in courses in Peiropo-
lis Foundation for Human Values, and an active
life in the Uberaba city a 15 min journey from
Harambe.
There is more that could be said about a project idealised
over 30 years ago that is in perfect syncronicity with the
most recent concepts of sustainable development and based
in a firm triptic: social, ambiental and economic
development.
Being true to the saying that “ an image tells more than a
thousand words,” this presentation brings the vision of the place and the
ideal through images made by the photographer Luciano Sousa.
Now it is up to you to inspire
yourself and step in there with your
heart.
Would you like to know more about us?
info@harambe.org.br
We organise guided tours for Harambe and the surroundings.
http://www.spauberaba.com.br
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