In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the 25th article one can read “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself (...)”. In the context of these words, we decided to promote, along with the private institution for social solidarity Florinhas do Vouga, who were celebrating the International Day for Human Rights, an exercise on personal reflexion through writing.

In our installation you could find, over two tiny tables, a little mailbox, writing paper, envelopes and pens. We invited those who joined us for a little writing exercise: we asked people to, through pen and paper, express their personal worries or a social problem they were able to identify, local or global. If inspiration should fail them, we had little “poetic pills” to offer them, small pieces of paper with poems curated by our resident storyteller, Jéssica Jacinto.

Inspired by the techniques of journaling and therapeutic writing, our goal was to make people write the problem their facing so they could reevaluate its dimension. By observing it through a different lens, we hoped they would be now more fit to tackle it.

This action was done in cooperation with the Plataforma Aveiro Direitos Humanos and the IPSS Florinhas do Vouga and had the support of the IPDJ – Instituto Português do Desporto e Juventude, I.P.