Batuca-Bresser. Veja bem o bem que tem

On Saturday, 22 February, the carnival parade “Batuca-Bresser – o meu bloco de rua” promoted by the Arsenale della Speranza took place.
The bloco is now in its eleventh year and has a distinctive feature that sets it apart from all other ‘blocos’: it brings together children, families, young people, neighbourhood residents and the men staying at the Arsenal of Hope. The bateria, the musical soul of the parade, is also a sign of this gathering: about half of the percussionists are guests of the Arsenale, who have been rehearsing for almost two months under the guidance of one of our passionate volunteers, and the other half are university students from the psychology faculty of Mackenzie, a historic university in São Paulo.

For several years now, the bloco has been part of the city's official carnival programme, and the theme we have chosen this year is: Veja bem o bem que tem, that is “see the good that there is”, to reflect on the unfortunately widespread tendency to want to see the world only through security cameras, with black and white images that already lead you to see only the negative, in a mindset of searching for someone to blame. However, this is only part of the reality, because goodness exists, hospitality exists, volunteering exists, kindness exists, as do many other positive realities, so here is this year's message: let's help each other to point our security cameras, and above all our gaze, at the good that exists and that often goes unnoticed when it should be highlighted and nurtured.

And that is exactly what happened: an afternoon filled with this goodness, with the smiles of over five hundred people who came to parade with us: Brazilians, Italians, Bolivians, Africans of various nationalities who symbolically brought the whole world to our carnival, making it even more colourful. We hope that this beautiful celebration may have truly awakened in many the desire to look at the world with this gaze of goodness and hope!


The Fraternity of Sermig in Brazil
Photos by José Luiz Altieri and Fábio José Pereira Lima
NP March 2025