State Camp for the Formation of Peasant Youth took place last month, in Iguaracy-PE

Promoted by the Pastoral Land Commission, the 6th edition of the meeting counts on the Commission of Young Multipliers of Agroecology (CJMA) as one of the partners

Tatiane Faustino da Silva, undergraduate in Agroecology at UFRPE and young agroecology multiplier
Gildo José da Silva, Agroecology Technician and Young Agroecology Multiplier

The camp brings together young people from the territories of Sertões do Pajeú and Central, Mata Norte, Mata Sul, and Agreste in Pernambuco, started on Friday, March 24th, and ended on Sunday, March 26th. The theme of this edition was Identity, Struggle, and Resistance. The initiative comes from the Pastoral Land Commission – CPT and counts on the partnership of Iguaracy’s City Hall, the Commission of Young Agroecology Multipliers – CJMA, and Iguaracy’s Rural Workers Union. The objective was to gather more than 100 young people to study and understand their role in their localities, beyond the challenges: education, community, territory, use of technologies, and income generation.

The opening of the meeting began with a welcome, a mystique, and the division of the groups for self-management. On the second day, in the morning, there was a citizenship action promoted by Iguaracy’s City Hall, with quick health tests, games, and information about social programs. For Ceiça Quilombola, from the Commission of Young Multipliers of Agroecology, it was a moment of coming to terms with the whole process: political and pandemic. “We were able to discuss the current situation with the young people who have been on the path the longest, together with the young people who are arriving and organizing themselves in their communities and territories”, she said.

In the late afternoon of the second day, the participants were divided into 4 groups for conversations in dialogue wheels that addressed the following thematic axes:
Fraternity and Hunger – Mediator Father Rogério, parish priest of the Iguaracy municipality
Youth and education, rights and duties Mediator Maurílio Nogueira, CPT
Youth, Women and Income Generation- Mediator Ângela Schep, CPT
Territories: agroecology and food production/Education in Agroecology- Mediators Gildo and Tatiane, from the Commission of Young Multipliers of Agroecology – CJMA.

For us (Gildo and Tatiane), who mediated one of the dialogue rounds, it was important to be able to share our experiences with other young people. It is very gratifying to talk about our production and the paths traveled, a wonderful sharing and exchange of knowledge, to be able to share this today, we participated in many trainings with the Centro Sabiá and the CJMA. It is pleasurable to live this boldness, this taste for the land, for the rural, for agroecology, for the peasant way of life, for the place where we live, it is to understand that collective organization is important and possible. This moment also invites us to understand youth, their importance, their place to speak, their rights, and to critically reflect on their place in the community and in the world.