Elza Soares inspires teenagers in the fight against violence – 09/08/2023 – Seminars Folha

At 16 years old, Amanda Menezes, a resident of the port area of ​​the city of Rio de Janeiro, already had a history of domestic violence. The suffering, for reasons she preferred not to detail, was just not greater because, in high school, she found a friend to share her pain with.

From the realization that sharing is relieving, came the desire to join other girls. The result was the creation of the Girl Up Elza Soares club, in 2019, which, the following year, won the approval of a state law obliging the government to include feminine pads in its basic baskets.

“My idea, at the time, was not so much to promote change. I didn’t know what we could do, that we had such incredible power and that we could really change things. I thought that was a space just for people talk and complain”, said Amanda, a social communications student at UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), currently 21 years old.

From meeting to meeting, the club gained fans. During the pandemic, it had 30 participants. They organized themselves into virtual study groups to deal mainly with the development of social projects. Along the way, they also learned new things, such as ways to use Google tools to give visibility to their work.

Along with the other 29 girls, Amanda knocked on the doors of dozens of state deputies in Rio, in 2020. One returned, Renan Ferreirinha (PSD-RJ), current municipal secretary of Education. The demand was that something be done to end menstrual poverty in Rio.

To their surprise, the parliamentarian’s response was for them to draft a bill themselves demanding the inclusion of the item in the basic food basket. The document was written in one day and unanimously approved by the Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Alerj).

The discovery of Girl Up Brasil by Amanda and her friend Dhara Ataíde happened through Instagram. The next step was to get in touch with the national entity to create a Rio de Janeiro subdivision, representing the teenagers of the north zone of Rio de Janeiro, the Girl Up Elza Soares club. In the city, there were already four clubs like theirs, all formed by girls from the south zone, hence the choice to represent the north zone.

The United Nations (UN) global Girl Up movement trains and connects girls to be leaders and activists for gender equality. At first, Amanda felt afraid of making the commitment, she experienced disbelief from adults, but also encouragement from her friend.

“Being a feminist means bringing knowledge to light and helping communication between women. It’s about community, about connecting”, says the young woman.

All activities carried out by the group were financed by the group, which, until this year, had not received any type of funding. Only in 2023, the collective won a bid from the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), worth R$5,000, to, with the support of Fundação Gol de Letra, train teenagers on climate issues and build a vertical garden with vegetable garden community in the community of Caju, where Menezes grew up.

The Gol de Letra Foundation contributes to contact between the collective and the children and adolescents who participate in the project and provides space for workshops.

Today, the collective is just called Elzas, it has gained a life of its own, is no longer associated with Girl Up Brasil, and since 30 it has had three members. As they got older, the participants focused on studies and work and it became difficult to remain in the club. One of the remainder, administration student Gabriela Machado, 20, says that she intends to pursue a political career. In her opinion, being an ‘Elza’ means “being resistant, not giving up”. In addition to Amanda and Gabriela, the group is made up of Beatriz Diniz, 20.

The choice of the name Elza Soares to baptize the club started with Google, where the teenagers researched the most important women in Brazil. The criterion was that the honoree had been born in the north zone of Rio, had a history of surviving violence and poverty and was alive.

The singer fit in perfectly. Until then, they had barely heard the artist’s songs, but they became in-depth knowledge of the collective. They are most proud of the two comments from the singer, who died in 2022, on the club’s Instagram page. In one, Elza Soares calls the girls beautiful and in another she sends four kisses.

The topic of menstruation came up because domestic violence, the group’s main reason for mobilization, was personally difficult for Amanda to deal with. “I feel very vulnerable when it comes to this subject. If I give a lecture about it, I’ll start crying. I try to go through other means”, she says.

In Brazil, more than 4 million girls do not have access to basic menstrual care items in schools, according to Unicef. This is one of the reasons they miss classes and feel without dignity.

Researcher at the National Institute of Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health Fernandes Figueira (IFF/Fiocruz), Corina Mendes says that, without basic products such as sanitary pads, many women resort to bread crumbs and pieces of paper, without adequate hygiene, and are therefore subject to infertility, sexual diseases, social exclusion and psychological suffering.

“There is a process, today, of giving new meaning to menstruation. Groups, like Elzas, appropriate it as a tool of power. Talking generates trust, a way out of silence”, emphasized the researcher.

The assessment of sociologist Lígia Cardieri, secretary of the Feminist Health Network, is that women have gained strength in recent years. “We are back on the front pages in the world, because the issue of democracy has become problematic again”, she believes.