My second visit to a Ponto de Cultura. South East Sao Paulo, “Real Parque” and “Jardim Panorama”. This one was in the border with the “periferia“ . It was a great venue and its story is quite amazing. Project Casulo started with the investment from the favela’s rich neighbours.  A considerable investment from lots of different macro companies made the beginning of the project possible. This investment was certainly good to the local area and possibly one of the best ways to avoid drug trafficking and crime. The venue has 4 floors, dance classes, drum classes, Multimedia studio and a Ponto de Cultura. This really shows Brazil as the land of contrasts. A rich neighbourhood sharing walls with a Shanty town, but this time the rich had no other solution than help. In between many partnerships they have with macro companies (more here) such as Deutsche Bank, Bradesco, Nestle, Microsoft; the one with the Ministry of Culture seems to work fine and they already have some media publish in the estudio livre database.

• NOT similar to the first Ponto I visited, Internet connection here was less than 1 Mega, but both Fluxo TV and Brazcast worked perfectly. I’ve met Paco born in 1988 and he was already a Linux expert. He is the strong link between the project Casulo and the Pontos de Cultura. It is notorious the open source enthusiasm I could feel in this place. We will be back in January to do a workshop on how to use Fluxo TV and Brazcast.

I did the first visit to a “Ponto” this week. Was a fantastic human expirience. It was the “Casa da Cultura da Tainã” in the Sao Paulo State at a twon called: “Campinas”– I’ve met in there a bunch of great people. “TC” is the menthor (with the drum on the photo).

• I found this extremly interesting: “Quilombo is a Brazilian hinterland founded by Quilombolos, or Maroons and, sometimes, a minority of marginalised Portuguese, Brazilian aboriginals, and/or other non-black, non-slave Brazilians.” I’ve been told that in those communities they used share. Helpped each other to overcome problems, they have communal places and they are still alive today. “TC” grew up in a Quilombo and he finds that same sharing spirit in the opensource community.

The venue used to be a public swiming pool but in 1989 collapsed and it was closed down. The commuity occupied the permises and 3 years ago became an official “Ponto de Cultura” receiving an “Open source Multimedia KiT” (with support from de estudioLivre) regular funding plus free satelite conection to the internet. They are producing music, have an amazing Steel drums orquestra, regular digital opensource workshops, hacklab, music studio, all runing without a single license! Well done. Allthought they have a telephone line and they could be receiving adsl, their satelite conection is so slow that they have skipped the youtube revolution. When they need to upload some of their productions they go to their friends adsl connection. Again Brazil, so many people to blame that it looks like is no ones fault. But one thing is true: Well done from all the people involved but a Linux Quilombo in the 21st century should NOT be treated with third class Internet.