Unlikely allies bond to aid Brazilian girls

Rita Conceição is an African Brazilian who grew up in the notorious shantytowns of Salvador, sprawling breeding grounds of poverty and violence.

Margaret Willson was raised in a middle-class home on the Oregon Coast and earned a master's in anthropology from Western Washington University before traveling abroad to experience what she had learned in the classroom.

Unlikely allies, the two women met in Salvador and, over 17 years, formed a friendship based on mutual respect.

Together they established Seattle-based Bahia Street, which operates a private-school-style program in Salvador to rescue a generation of impoverished Brazilian girls from prostitution and early pregnancy and teach them about possibilities beyond the shantytowns.

Earlier this month, World of Children, a California-based organization, awarded Conceição what some have called the Nobel Prize for children, which recognizes those making a difference in the lives of the world's children.

Bahia Street provides young girls — 60 at any given time — with educational and emotional support, seeking to prepare them for future leadership in a country that offers them no real role models.

"The situation for children, for young people in Bahia, is horrific, and it's getting worse," Conceição said from the organization's headquarters in the University District. "Bahia Street allows these children to move through that unscathed enough to grow and to positively change the conditions of existence for themselves and others around them."

Conceição was one of eight worldwide winners of the cash award, with grants up to $75,000.

"We look for people making a significant difference in the lives of children and facing a high degree of difficulty doing so," said Harry Leibowitz, founder and chairman of World of Children.

"When you look at what they are doing, at the environment in which they are working, the cultural caste system down there, you understand. ... "

Descendants of slaves

Located on Brazil's northeast coast, Salvador is the capital of the state of Bahia and home to about 2.8 million people, more than 80 percent of whom are descendants of slaves brought to the city in the 16th century.

No city outside the continent of Africa has as large a concentration of black people. Income disparities are stark in Salvador, with political power concentrated in the hands of the nonblack minority.

Dwellings of scrap plywood and corrugated metal make up the vast shantytowns that lack proper sanitation and other services.

It was into one of these so-called neighborhoods of the people that Conceição was born, the oldest of eight.

When her mother died at age 48, it fell on Conceição to help raise her siblings and see that they continued the education their mother so valued, all while pursuing a sociology degree at the Federal University of Bahia.

It took her 12 years to earn it.

It was through education that Conceição rose from the poverty of the shantytowns, and as a photographer that she glimpsed into the world of political power in Brazil.

And in that world, "I never saw a single black person," she said. She longed to change that. "I wanted to give them dignity and self-respect ... a connection to society," Conceição said. "A chance to become part of a civil society."

But even in Conceição's home country, it took Willson — a foreigner, but one from the right racial class — to open doors to government offices, civic groups and other institutions to give Conceição's ideas life.

The two women met in 1991 at a Capoeira, a unique mix of Afro-Brazilian dance and martial arts. Later, as Willson's research assistant, Conceição introduced the Northwesterner to her Salvador, the energy and the danger.

Willson writes about her experience in her 2007 book, "Dance Lest We All Fall Down," which she dedicates to Conceição.

It was during long conversations about race, class and politics that the idea for Bahia Street took form. "She is one of the few African Brazilians who obtained her college degree and then went back to the shantytowns to try to help," Willson said.

Meals and role models

In Seattle, Willson serves as Bahia Street's international director, while in Salvador, Conceição works with the children, many of whom have been sexually molested. For some, Bahia Street is an alternative to a life of prostitution.

After four hours of public school, they arrive each day at the only place where most will get a shower and a hot meal and find positive adult role models.

They study computer and other courses, and a psychologist helps them deal with the trauma that's constant in their lives.

To be part of Bahia Street, the girls must be at least 6, impoverished, attend public school and have some family structure; they can't be street kids. The first girl enrolled 11 years ago, and four now are enrolled in university.

Conceição said they are becoming activists in their own right, seeking change in the public schools they attend. "They are not just becoming 'middle-class'; they are developing racial and gender consciousness."

Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420

or lturnbull@seattletimes.com