Crossing Borders with Nonviolence

On this episode of Nonviolence Radio, Stephanie and Michael welcome Leandro Uchoas, founder and director of Shanti Brazil, an organization dedicated to education in nonviolence and nonviolent action. Leandro spent time studying nonviolence in India at the university set up by Gandhi and was so inspired that he returned to Brazil to further Gandhian principles on the ground there. This episode explores the exciting work of Shanti Brazil, and more, it brings to light the way in which there is an existing and increasingly expanding global network of nonviolent organizations and institutions. Leandro, Stephanie and Michael discuss the ways in which a dedication to nonviolence can bring together local communities from far corners of the globe. Whether in Brazil or the US, India or Finland, nonviolence is a practice and its methods and strategies can – and should! – be shared.

"…we must, at this moment, reimagine how we build our democratic institutions, how they are built. And maybe this must come not from the top. This must come from us, from civil society. And we should be organized and discussing this, about these new institutions and how to reorganize society."

From Leandro we can see how nonviolent activity is thriving even amidst some of the distressing political turns the world is now taking. Sometimes we need to look harder to see nonviolence in action for it grows under a light distinct from the glaring spotlight of mainstream/social media. This is the light of truth and love.

Transcript

Stephanie: Greetings, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Nonviolence Radio. I'm your host, Stephanie Van Hook, and I'm here in the studio with my co-host and news anchor of the Nonviolence Report, Michael Nagler. And we are from the Metta Center for Nonviolence in Petaluma, California.

And on today's show, we are going to turn to the country of Brazil. We have with us on the phone, Leandro Uchoas. And he is the founder and director of a wonderful organization in Brazil called Shanti Brazil. And we want to hear all about their work and how you can get involved, but also how their work ties into the nonviolence movement within Brazil. So, let's welcome Leandro Uchoas to Nonviolence Radio.

Welcome, Leandro.

Leandro: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Stephanie: We really want to explore through the work of Shanti Brazil and its impact within the Brazilian context and all about it. So let's dive into it. What is Shanti Brazil? What inspired you to start it?

Leandro: Shanti Brazil is an institution that was set up in Brazil in 2014 after I studied in India. I'd been studying in India in 2013. I went to study Nonviolence and Peace – Culture of Peace in the university, Gujarat Vidyapith. Vidyapith means university, so it's the university founded by Mahatma Gandhi himself. He founded this university in 1920, and I studied there in 2013.

And when I went to study there, I was very compromised with the study of peace and nonviolence. I was studying very hard and the director of the university invited me to come back to Brazil and set up an institution based on nonviolence and peace. They chose the name Shanti Brazil. Shanti, in their language, means peace. So, they chose the name and I came back to Brazil and I set up this institute.

In the beginning, the main purpose was to work on education with children and teenagers to promote nonviolence and peace, going to some schools, going to some projects like that. But after 2018, we changed a little bit our work and we started to promote new ways of acting. So, now education is only one branch of our work.

Stephanie: You know that story is really interesting to me, the way that you are in Brazil and then decided to study nonviolence in India. You go to Gandhi's university, Gujarat Vidyapith. And from there you come back with the mission to continue to promote nonviolence as a cohesive force between the Brazilian culture and the Indian culture, fusing them together for your work in Brazil.

I'm quite curious about the work of Gujarat Vidyapith and what you did while you were there. But before we get there, Leandro, you said it's 2013, and you decide to go to Gujarat Vidyapith. So, kind of bring us into what is happening in Brazil at that time, and what is happening in your life that makes you feel that nonviolence is what you want to study?

Leandro: At that time, Brazil was living in very significant turbulence in 2013. I don't know if you are aware of Brazilian history, but in June of 2013, we had, like, huge demonstrations. Do you remember when there were huge demonstrations in the north of Africa, in some countries of the world?

So, in Brazil, it happened too. And it happened in 2013, demonstrations to get some rights. And it was not so clear what the demonstrations were – what people wanted with that, going to the streets to protest – it was not so clear. But there were huge demonstrations.

Then the political situation became very, very intense over the years. And it's still like that, so far.

But from 2013 to 2016, it was very strong, the turbulence in our democracy, in our politics. And in 2018, the extreme right government came to Brazil, Bolsonaro, and you know part of this story. So, Brazil was living a very strong turbulence.

And I was like an activist at that time, I was a very strong activist. I was 35 years old, so I was involved with many different struggles: for land, for communication, for many things.

So, when I decided to go to India, I decided to study nonviolence as an activist. And when I arrived in Gujarat Vidyapith, of course, I studied that. But I also studied many other fields of Gujarat peace, because the studies of peace, it's like in many different fields. Like I said, education for example, education for peace, adjudication for peace, or sometimes we talk about nonviolent communication, about restorative justice, about conflict resolution.

So, all of the things I had to study, and it was kind of new world – a new world that I was facing. Many of these fields were new for me. I didn't know that they really existed. And I had very good teachers there.

When I came back, I set up this institution and I decided to go to work on many of those fields. So, our institution today, we promote nonviolent communication, how people relate to each other. We promote restorative circles. It's not only about activism and education like it was in the beginning.

What brought me to Vidyapith was this activist, the nonviolent activist, that’s what made me go to India to study Gandhi and everything. But I realized that the debate was more complex. When you talk about peace, we are talking about too many things, too many new things that I didn't know at that time that those things exist.

Stephanie: That reminds me, Leandro. When I came to nonviolence, I was studying conflict resolution. I had been in the Peace Corps. I had been in West Africa. Like I believed in peace in myself, you know, deeply, but I sort of lacked a methodology for establishing peace, for doing activism in peaceful ways.

And then that's when I found the work of Gandhi, but also the work of Michael, who's my mentor here at the Metta Center. It helped bring a bit of a framework for me. And then from there, like you, I am part of this organization that helps to promote nonviolence in the world. And we understand that you can just go deeper and deeper into nonviolence and keep practicing it, that you don't ever just get it. It's a practice.

And that's why I think it's so neat to connect with you because I feel that kind of kinship with you, that we're in the same work together. 

Leandro: Sure, sure.

Michael: Leandro, I want to weigh in with, first of all, a quick question, and then a not so quick comment.

Leandro: Sure.

Michael: My question is there had been a serious dictatorship in Brazil before Bolsonaro, right? So, their democracy was not like America's democracy that lasted for a couple of hundred years.

That was, I think, an important factor. I think people probably still had a living memory of how horrible it was under dictatorship. And that was very much motivating them to get out on the street and say, “No, no, we do not want to go back there.”

Leandro: Yeah.

Michael: Now, my comment is – this is just a note of deep appreciation, Leandro. I think what you are a good example of is a modern kind of nonviolence, where in fact, we do learn from each other. When the civil rights movement started here in the United States, there were exchanges in both directions. Indians came here to help out and people from the Harlem Renaissance went to India to learn.

And then when Kosovo won its independence in the 90s, many years later, again, some of those young men who had been part of that uprising, which was partly nonviolent, they became mentors and went around the world and different nonviolent movements while learning from them.

Now, this seems to be a big, big step forward. That nonviolence is no longer just kind of a spontaneous “Let’s run out in the street and protest,” but let's learn from our experiences. And so, I look upon you as a really good example of that, Leandro. And I wonder if you'd like to comment on it.

Leandro: Yes. Actually, history is teaching us what nonviolence must mean in our times. So, when we watch history in the world in the last years, in the last decades, we need to be always trying to give a new meaning of what nonviolence means in our times.

So, that's why we must be together, our organizations must be together, always talking and always understanding what is going on. Because, for example, as you were mentioning, we had like four years of Bolsonaro, which was like a terrible moment, like a fascist moment.

The difference between Bolsonaro and our dictatorship from 1964 until 1985, we had 21 years of dictatorship. They were dictators. They were like conservatives, but they were not fascists. And Bolsonaro is a fascist like Donald Trump. It's a new problem for the world because the fascists are coming to the whole world. Like in many places, they are really fascists.

And there are democratic institutions that try to resist these authoritarian people. But I don't know if it's going to be enough because they are getting stronger and stronger. And what should we do at this difficult moment now? I don't know. So we have to be together talking.

And, of course, we do not want to use violence against those people, but we must resist and learn with each other, like Martin Luther King. But some of the followers of Martin Luther King, as you said, went to India to learn. Some of them went through the university where I studied, Gujarat Vidyapith, to learn with people how they resisted the British colonization. So, we are always learning and trying to find a way in that new political structure.

So, that's what we must do in this world now. Because it's in Brazil. It's in Argentina. It's going to be probably in Chile this year. They are going to be doing elections. In Brazil, there will be elections next year. And maybe the extreme right people can come back to power. We are afraid of that.

And in America, in many countries in Europe, Italy, Poland, many countries like that, these people, they are threatening the world. So we must be learning again that nonviolence is going to be necessary in the world now to resist these kinds of people. 

Michael: Leandro, one phrase you said a lot and one phrase in particular has jumped out for me. You said something about a new political structure. And I think in addition to the discovery of nonviolence, which is very deep and very powerful and very creative, we really need new political structures to express nonviolence. That, you know, top-down governments don't do a very good job of being nonviolent.

There is a book that we read recently called The Starfish and the Spider, which talks about how certain groups in this hemisphere were very top-down, very hierarchical, and the Spanish were able to defeat them very easily. And then other groups that had a more diffuse kind of leadership, but it was real leadership. They had real coherence. They were really aware of one another. It took hundreds of years for them to really be subdued.

So, that's the two things I think that we need. We need the discovery of nonviolence, which you have picked up on very well. And we need a new kind of political format in which to institutionalize it. That's one of the reasons why it's more difficult for us to get organized than it is for the right wing, because they know exactly what they're trying to build, and we're kind of discovering it as we go along.

Leandro: Sure, sure. So actually, we must, at this moment, reimagine how we build our democratic institutions, how they are built. And maybe this must come not from the top. This must come from us, from civil society. And we should be organized and discussing this, about these new institutions and how to reorganize society.

And also, what you're saying is totally correct. And also, both political structures nowadays, they are mainly based on social media. So, it really becomes a problem, like how Facebook, Instagram, X, this kind of social media works today. Because they promote lies.

And as they promote lies to make money, those political parties are based in lies and not in truth. Mahatma Gandhi’s thought was mainly based in nonviolence and truth. And we are living in a moment where political parties that are based in lies, not in truth, they get power because social media promotes lies. If you post something that is true, there will be some likes. But if it is something that is a lie, there will be many, many likes.

And so that's a very – maybe this is the main problem, the main reason why those people are coming to power. To stop this, we have to create a regulation of social media.

And it's very difficult to regulate these structures that are not connected to countries. They are kind of anarchists. They are not connected to any country, to any system of justice. So, it’s difficult to regulate them. But we have no choice. We have to regulate.

Some countries of Europe and even Brazil are getting some success in regulating those medias and forbid some kind of behavior on them and we must be more strict with them. Because social media, of course, we cannot compromise the freedom of speech, the freedom of people to speak whatever they want to speak. We cannot compromise that because that is about democracy. But we must regulate social media. We must stop their behavior of promoting lies to make money because this is causing a strong impact for the whole of mankind.

We talked about today, Brazil, the United States, and India mostly in our conversation here. Those three countries have had problems of fascists that have come to power. And they are making some decisions that it's difficult to understand why people vote in this kind of people.

So, for me, I am convinced, and many people in Brazil are convinced that social media must be regulated because this is the main cause of what is happening to the whole world.

Stephanie: Leandro, one thing that Michael and I often talk about that's taken Michael also some time to really help me to see is that the kind of commercial mass media in general, that also includes social media, is the problem. So, for example, we know that for those people who use social media, like Instagram is a really good example, but any social media you use, other than maybe some of the newer platforms, are about selling you things.

It's about advertisements. So, you're posting information. They're collecting data on what you might want to buy and then showing you those advertisements. Whereas something like TikTok or Instagram are actually, you know, monetizing you as well. If the more followers you have, and then you start promoting products on your channel or in your videos so that you make some more money from advertisers so that we become the commercials ourselves.

As that relates to truth and untruth, Michael and I might be looking at billboards around the county where we're at and we just take for granted, I think, as a society that we understand that commercials lie to us. That these are not real people who are really using these products. These are paid actors and models who are paid money to pretend to like a product and to pretend to promote it.

And so, that in itself is the fundamental approach to commercial media, is to lie to people. We accept that lie in order to learn about a product. And then we go and we buy the product and make the judgment ourselves. So, that lying is just so deeply embedded into everything we see around us that, we just accept it as part of the –

Leandro: That’s true. That’s true.

Stephanie: So, you know, just I think if anything, if people can start looking around and just saying, you know, hey, those people who are so happy in those advertisements were paid to smile like that, and they probably don't even use that product. I think that's one way to start to undo our belief system that that kind of lying is okay.

Leandro: Yeah. We can act as activists. We can act with social media and mass media, as you are saying, using the strategy of boycott as – if I understood what you were saying, maybe you're proposing in some cases, you can boycott some products. Is that what you're saying?

Stephanie: I think I was saying just to be educated about what the point of these media are, that they promote social cohesion, or you know, a better life in one way or another. But it's all based on the lie that in order to be happy, we have to buy things or sell each other things. So to think of that story, and to accept that fundamentally those advertisements are paying people to pretend to be happy to use their product. So yeah, boycott is a – boycott could be a one way, for sure.

Leandro: Yeah. So, now I understand better what you're saying. Boycott – I mentioned boycott because we are a little bit afraid of using that strategy. Because to make a boycott work, like the example of Martin Luther King, they boycotted the buses in – what is the name of the city? I forgot.

Michael: Montgomery

Leandro: Montgomery, yes. Yeah, exactly. They boycotted the buses and it worked. But to work this kind of strategy, we must mobilize many people. And that's why this is a good strategy if we are capable of mobilizing many people. If we are not able, it's not the best strategy to take. 

There are some studies of – I'm not sure if it's every country in the West that has talked about that – but there are some studies proving that we must mobilize at least 3.5% of those who were affected by that issue, at least 3.5%, according to that study. So, boycott is one strategy that we are a little afraid of choosing. Maybe we can choose another strategy for this kind of problem involving mass media. There are many.

In the United States, there are some institutions, some studies about which strategy we must take to face this kind of problem. And that's something that we must be together talking about and taking a decision together, what to do.

In Brazil, we’re not – it's working. As you said, it's a problem of the whole mass media, not only social media, as I was saying before. But in Brazil, social media, Facebook, Instagram, and X, and this kind of thing, in the Supreme Court, they are making many decisions to regulate them.

And if they don't, they are eliminated from Brazil. Like it happened some months ago with X of Elon Musk's. They were eliminated from Brazil, and they had to make everything that our Supreme Court said to come back for people to use again the media X.

And now, you know, Telegram is another one. The Russian media, Telegram, wanted to work in our country without having an office, without having anything like that. And our Supreme Court said, “No, we don't accept.” And they stopped Telegram to be acting in our country. They had to set up an office and someone to be responsible. After that, they could come back and work here. So, there are some things going on here.

And even the European Union, they are trying to make some decisions in that direction. Of course, the problem is so much stronger than this one. But something must be done urgently because I don't know if those people have the control of most countries in the world, I don't know what's going to be the future.

Michael: Yeah. Oh, boy. Leandro, that's very encouraging to hear about the Brazilian Supreme Court. I don't think we're going to get the cooperation of the Supreme Court in the United States.

You know, you talked about boycott and said we needed another strategy. I think the other strategy is education. If we would educate people, first of all, as to what a human being is. And second of all, how to distinguish between lies and truth, how to distinguish between hate speech and cooperation, that then we could set people free. And we wouldn't need either to boycott them or to limit them by law, if people had what we call media literacy.

Leandro: That's the main strategy. Actually, what we have here in Brazil is a good news this year. Because there was consensus among all of the parties: the rightists and the leftists were in consensus to forbid mobile cell phones in schools. So, in our schools now, children and teenagers cannot use a cell phone. This is something good now about our education. 

And now people are trying to educate this kind of thing that you're saying. And actually to educate people about what is truth, what is nonviolence is something that we try to put in action here in our projects, very strongly. That was Mahatma Gandhi was calling mightily the new mother of education. Teach children how to promote peace and nonviolence.

And actually, he was always bringing nonviolence and truth together – ahimsa and satya together. It’s like the same concept, like the nonviolence is the means and truth is the goal, right? So, we are based on that thought to work in our schools here, in Mahatma Gandhi's thought about mightily.

And last year professor M.P. Mathai came to Brazil, and he gave a workshop on how to improve, mighty concepts and to promote that in our schools. His workshop was wonderful. And we are going to post on YouTube soon. We were just translating, and we were going to post on YouTube after doing it in English and Portuguese. So, that's something that we must do urgently.

Stephanie: For those of you just tuning in, we're here at Nonviolence Radio. I'm Stephanie, Michaels here with me, and we're speaking with Leandro Uchoas from Shanti Brazil. And we're just sort of exploring the ideas and concepts of nonviolence as applied to politics today and world politics and the work for democracy.

Now, Leandro, you talked about studying at Gujarat Vidyapith and then coming back and forming Shanti Brazil with their support. You had also asked you to live with the poor in Brazil when you returned, and you said that you had.

So, you actually lived as part of the MST for some years. Can you talk about that movement? I wanted to start exploring some of the ideas of the Gandhian concepts that MST is demonstrating, and also to help people understand who the MST is and why they're so significant in Brazil. So, can you just sort of get us up to date? What is the MST?

Leandro: Yes. As you said, when I started in 2013 in India, they asked me to come back and not only set up this institute, Shanti Brazil Institute, and work in some schools, but also they asked me to go to live with poor people, close to poor people, and to not to forget who I was working to.

So, when I came here, I always had many friends in MST. Many friends that the Landless Movement, of which I don't know if everybody here is aware about what MST is. MST is a movement of landless people, and it's a very strong movement in Brazil. Very strong. Maybe it is the biggest movement of Latin America. Many, many people, working for giving land for those who don't have land.

And I had many friends, and I went to live in a village where the main leaders of MST live in a place here in Rio de Janeiro, close to the slums. And I lived with them for four years, with those people. And then this place started to become very dangerous because Rio de Janeiro is a very dangerous city. 

And we had the Olympic Games in Brazil in 2016 in our city. And because of the Olympic Games, Rio de Janeiro was safer at that time but after the games finished, the dangerous places became more dangerous than they were before. So, I had to leave that place. But I lived there for four years.

This movement is very strong in our country. It produces many leaders. And even since the last elections, the leaders started to be candidates for parliaments. They decided to be in institutional politics also.

So, now we have many of the leaders of MST that become – like they work in the parliament. They're representatives. And this movement, we can say that their main method is nonviolence because what they are doing is to occupy land without using violence against nobody. We can say that, but we cannot say that their main intellectual basis is Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King. Actually, most of the leaders have reference in other leaders not these ones that are my personal history to start, like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mandela, these kind of people. 

So, we can say that their methodology is nonviolence because they occupy without using violence, and they just occupy land that the government says that this land is not being used. There's no economic use for that land. And our Constitution says that if there is a land that is not being exploited, we must use this land for giving people – landless people. That's what our Constitution says.

So, the movement is just following what the Constitution says, or they just go and occupy this kind of land. It's not any land. It's a land that the government has said, “This land is not with economic use, so it must be occupied.” So they just go and occupy it. 

And sometimes the police come, and the police shoot against them. The police beat them. The police make tremendous things against them. And they don't react. They just stay, they don't react to anything. Sometimes they [police] kill their leaders. It's very common. I had a close friend called Cicero Guedes. He was murdered in 2011, before I went to India. He was a leader of MST. 

So, many, many of the leaders are killed. Brazil is one of the countries where human rights activists usually are killed. More than 50 – I think, last year, was 54. More than 50 human rights activists were killed in our country. Even there was a very close friend of mine called Marielle Franco, maybe you’ve heard about her because she was very famous in different countries. Marielle Franco was killed in 2018. She was a human rights activist.

So, some of these people, they are just killed, and they don't react violently. So we can say that they use nonviolence. They are doing exactly the same thing, the same method of Vinoba Bhave. You know Vinoba Bhave was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi that promoted many struggles for land in India after Gandhi died. So, they are doing exactly the same. 

We cannot say that they are Gandhians because they don't study Gandhi. They don't study nonviolence. They are acting as nonviolent activists, but they are not studying. Usually, most of the movements in Latin America, they study Karl Marx. They study, many leftist writers, not Gandhi and Martin Luther King. But they are, as a method, they are following what nonviolence is. 

Stephanie: Thank you very much for that. I want to ask about the idea of constructive program. We see the MST, the landless workers' movement, as an example of Gandhi and constructive program because not only do they use what's in the – democratically, you know, what’s in the Constitution – to occupy the land that is not being used, but then they set up schools and newspapers, and they build society within that space that educates for democracy. Can you speak to the constructive program angles of the MST?

Leandro: Yes, we can say that. That is a good example of constructive program. Because, MST, they have – even I worked in, from 2009 to 2011 as a journalist, I used to be a journalist. And I worked as a journalist in their newspaper.

They have a newspaper called Brasil de Fato. So far it’s – actually this is the newspaper of many social movements of Brazil, not only MST. But as MST is the strongest, they kind of control the newspaper. So, they have this newspaper, and they have like, very, very recognized schools. Schools to teach like a normal regular school, teaching mathematics, teaching physics, teaching everything.

But they teach many subjects about behavior, and they teach agriculture, organic agriculture. Because MST only plants organic. Actually they don't use fertilizers in their agriculture. Actually, some people use them, and sometimes they discover that some people using them and it's a scandal.

Stephanie: Did they get in trouble?

Leandro: Yeah, they got in trouble. Because the values of the movement, they cannot use fertilizers. They can plant only organic and respecting the nature. That's the values of the organization. That's what they teach in their schools.

And also they have, kind of, let's say, a model of industry, like the constructive program that you were saying. Like a model of industry, producing like how to make – I don’t know about how to use oranges to make juice, how to produce milk, rice. They are the leaders. In South America, they are the leaders of producing organic rice. In the field of organic rice, they are the leaders, not the capitalist industries. They have a model of industry that is close to what we understand as cooperative. It's similar to that. So, it's a very strong organization. 

MST is a very interesting organization. Everybody should come to Brazil and know this organization. And even they have something that it's really impressive, that they have a good capacity to generate leaders. Their leaders become really good people, charismatic people, people that are able to seduce everybody – and are very, very able of a good speech about analyzing politics.

So, their schools, they produce very good leaders. And these leaders, now they go to the political institutions. They, in the past, they didn't do that. But now they started to do, and they go to politics, and they get a lot of votes because they are charismatic people. So, MST is just a very interesting people.

Michael: Excuse me, Leandro. I would add that if people cannot afford a trip to Brazil, the next best thing is they can watch a documentary called Raiz Forte, Strong Roots. It was a very good film. It gives a very strong impression of exactly what you said. That the landless workers people are generally very, very good on the dimension on the side of constructive program.

But it did seem to me from that film that there was a bit of a weak point that they were not able to defend themselves successfully against the police raids. So, that's why I think Shanti Brazil might be one of the most important organizations in Latin America, in the world today.

Leandro: True. Yeah, for them, it's really – it's very difficult to be protected from that.

Michael: I think there are some movements today which are very good at obstructive program, but they don't build anything. And then there's others like the MST are good at building but are not quite prepared to enter into conflict in a nonviolent way. And if we could bring them both together, I don't think anyone could stop us.

Leandro: Sure, sure. Yes. Anyone can’t stop us. True.

Just to add something, the problem we have here is that MST is a very big social movement so there are many people involved. So that's for one side, this is good. But at the same time, the agro-industry, they are also very strong in our country because they elect so many representatives, and they try to stop everything that MST tries to make.

So, at the same time, you have a very strong movement in that field. But the conservative people also are very strong in the same field. Agro-industry people that are planting soya, like monocultures of soya, of wheat, and rice, and many things that are in the rest of Brazil. And they are very strong, and they get a lot of votes, and they stop most of our governments to make advances.

Even when we have like now, we have a leftist president who is Lula. But this sector of agriculture relegated to the right parties because they are very strong. Without their support, they cannot do anything. So, we have this problem in our politics. These people are very strong, and they avoid the advances of MST.

Stephanie: We only have a little bit of time left, Leandro, and I know that you will be you have some programs you're going to be bringing people to India. Can you talk that educational opportunity and anything else that you'd like to say about people getting involved in your work?

Leandro: There will be a course in India called International Programme on Peace and Nonviolence. It's going to be from June 15th to July 31st this year, just in some months. And people are coming to study in MGM University, Mahatma Gandhi Mission University in the city of Aurangabad. And what is wonderful about this course is that this course is totally free. People just come to study nonviolence and peace with some of the main Gandhians of India.

The leaders of this course are Professor M.P. Mathai, who is a wonderful teacher that you also know, is a friend of yours. And also John Chelladurai is also a wonderful teacher on conflict resolution, restorative justice, and many, many subjects like that, and nonviolence and peace.

So, we are going to be there one month – 30 days. We are going to be studying 20 hours a week, nonviolence and peace. And 20 hours a week we're going to be practicing. And in the last 15 days (because the total is 45 days), in the last 15 days, the last two weeks, we are going to be traveling from the university to many different projects based on Gandhi. Even the ashram where Gandhi lived, Sevagram ashram in Wardha.

And also many different Gandhian projects, like schools, hospitals and constructive program, everything. We are going to be traveling. So, it's going to be really interesting. It's not like when I studied in India. I studied during 5 months. It was similar to this because it was part theoretical and part practical. It was similar to this, but now it's like it's more like 4 or 5 days, and it's going to be really nice.

My role in that program is just to mobilize people to go. But the main teachers are Professor Mathai and Professor Chelladurai, and the Gandians of India. And the course is totally free. People just must give $500 for housing, for food, and travels. And just $500 to pay for everything. But the course is totally free.

And, there are 12 people from some countries going. Brazil, Mexico, Ghana, and Finland that are some countries that people are going. But still we are receiving some applications for those who want to come. So if there are some people here listening to our conversation that want to come, just contact me.

Stephanie: Thank you so much, Leandro.

And just as we head out of this show, can you talk about how people can support your work, whether from outside of Brazil or from within?

Leandro: Actually, just support our work from outside of Brazil. People could help with some donations. In our website, people can make some donations to our institute. Actually, we are in the moment that we need a lot of those donations.

Also, people can come and work as a volunteer. They are most invited to work in our – come to our projects and work. Now we have a very important work, for example, against domestic violence. They gave us two prizes about this, this problem of avoiding domestic violence in Brazil, which is a very big problem in Brazil. I don't know how it is over there in America. But in Brazil, it's a very big problem. Especially after [unintelligible]. A lot of people started to be more violent at home. So, we have had a very strong work on that. 

We have some strong work on education at schools, teaching nonviolence and making restorative circles and teaching nonviolent communication everywhere, even in schools, companies, in NGOs, many places. So, everyone that wants to come and work as a volunteer, they’re most invited you can.

Stephanie: Thank you so much for your good work. Leandro. And the work of Shanti Brazil. My hope is that if people come and visit, the same thing will happen as when you went to India, is that they'll get inspired, and go back to their home and start another nonviolence institute.

Thank you so much for joining us, Leandro.

Leandro: Thank you so much for inviting me. And it was a pleasure. And I hope we are more connected from now on.

Michael: So let us stay connected.

Stephanie: Well, thank you everybody. This has been another episode of Nonviolence Radio. We want to thank our guest today, Leandro Uchoas from Shanti Brazil. 

To Matt and Robin Watrous, who helped to transcribe and edit the show. Thank you so much, Sofia Pechaty, Annie Hewitt, to Bryan over at Waging Nonviolence. And to our mother stations, KWMR and KPCA. Thank you for making this show available. Community radio is so important.

And to you, all of our listeners, if you want to learn more about nonviolence, do visit us at MettaCenter.org. And you can find the show and transcripts of the show at NonviolenceRadio.org.

And until the next time, everybody, please take care of one another. And see you in two weeks.