This blog captures the practice shared by Associação Brasileira Terra dos Homens (ABTH) at the launch of Family for Every Child’s Community of Practice on Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing, held on 31 March 2026.
In a community where teenagers are routinely labelled as problems; as too loud, too difficult, too much, a small team in Duque de Caxias, Brazil decided to ask a different question: what happens when we simply listen? The answer is Vozes da Alma (Voices of the Soul), a community-based mental health project run by ABTH in Complexo da Mangueirinha, a cluster of five favelas (communities) on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. The premise: take young people seriously, start with what they already love, and give them space to speak.
At the Community of Practice launch, two practitioners from ABTH shared the story of the project directly. Beatriz Matos is a communications specialist and journalist who coordinates social projects and facilitates learning with adolescents in Mangueirinha, using communication as a tool for rights promotion and youth expression. Mafê Ribeiro Bomfim Silva is a writer, educator, and facilitator who works with children and adolescents through educational activities and individual care, and is also a poet and producer celebrating Afro-Brazilian culture.
Complexo da Mangueirinha has real cultural vitality and strong community identity, but it is also marked by social inequality, racism, and limited access to services. After COVID-19, anxiety and depression among young people had increased and school engagement had dropped. In schools, the typical response to difficult behaviour was punishment rather than curiosity about what sat behind it. Nobody was asking teenagers how they felt.
Art as the way in
ABTH did not arrive with a psychological framework or a packaged curriculum. The starting point was art that teenagers in Mangueirinha already knew and loved. Mafe, a writer, educator, and slam poet who led much of the direct work, described it at the webinar, “We started using what they know. Funk. Spray painting on the walls outside their houses. We wanted them to be able to talk not just to classmates, but to the people who work at the school.”
The project ran three workshop streams: visual art, voice and poetry slam, and audiovisual communication, alongside regular listening circles. Participants were asked things like: what colour do you feel today? Why do you like that song? Simple tasks built trust. Ask your friend how they feel. Write it down. Come back and tell us what you understood. Young people who had never been invited to reflect on their inner lives started doing exactly that.
Crucially, the team started from feeling rather than terminology. Most young people had never heard the term “mental health,” but they knew exactly what they felt. So the team made space for them to name their experiences first, and offered language only after.
From participants to authors
As the project developed, the young people decided they wanted to make a documentary. They chose to tell stories from their own community. Not the violence and poverty that the media tends to focus on, but the artists, workers, and community leaders who make Mangueirinha what it is. They designed the interviews, filmed, and edited the final piece themselves.
The documentary, Vozes da Alma: o silêncio não mora aqui (Silence Doesn’t Live Here), was screened at schools, theatres, museums, and festivals, and selected for the International Film Festival in Pedra Azul, Espírito Santo. More than 600 people watched it, many of them seeing these young people as authors for the first time rather than as problems to be managed.
The project set out to work with 20 young people however 80 young people participated. Attendance ran at 75%, with 82% showing measurable increases in leadership behaviours and 90% in self-care. The participants reported that they understood what prejudice is, its consequences and how to avoid this. The school these young people attend also noticed many changes in the participants.
Three things that made it work
Looking at what Beatriz and Mafe described, a few things seem central to why the project landed the way it did.
- Start with what they already have. The team did not introduce unfamiliar tools or frameworks. They started with the art forms teenagers in Mangueirinha already valued. That choice communicated respect from the beginning, and it lowered the barrier to participation.
- Build safety before structure. To build a safe environment, ABTH recommends using active listening, group discussions, and coexistence agreements. This gives participants space to raise and explore issues themselves. Structure sessions around listening circles, small tasks, and gradual progression to establish trust before going deeper. In contexts where in-person meetings may not always be possible, online check-ins can form part of the support structure. Plan for safety from the start, whatever the format. Build it into your session design rather than assuming it will emerge on its own.
Think collectively, not just individually. The project’s most lasting impact appears to be not what it did for each young person in isolation, but what it enabled them to do together. The documentary was a collective act. The peer listening spaces were something they built for each other. The shift from being seen as problems to being seen as voices was shared.
What other practitioners can take from this
The launch of Family for Every Child’s Community of Practice on Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing is a signal that this kind of locally grounded practice matters and that it needs space to be shared, questioned, and built on across different contexts.
ABTH’s work is a practical reminder that supporting young people’s mental health does not have to start with clinical expertise. It can start with a circle. A question. A notebook. A song written together in a classroom.
When teenagers are given a genuine space to speak not just to be tolerated, but to be taken seriously as people with something worth saying they do not only become stronger themselves. They change the places they live in.
The Community of Practice on Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing is open to practitioners, members, and individuals working on children’s wellbeing. You can join the community using this link.
Recording of this session is available here.
Link to the documentary Vozes da Alma: o silêncio não mora aqui (Silence Doesn’t Live Here)