Bruna’s Thoughts
The month of January flew by and with it the time of YIP in Brazil came to and end. Most of the YIPUNI participants experienced a roller coaster of emotions during the Playing for Change weeks, as they described.
As part of the YIP organizing team and as a person who decided to join the challenge given by Edgard Gouveia to create something spectacular for a community larger than the YIPUNI community, I was blessed to witness and to experience the many deep learnings we got from this experience – as well the roller coaster of emotions.
Besides the challenge of understanding which community we would work with – at the end we worked with Caubi, a little village half an hour away from Piracanga – the 65 YIPUNI participants had to figure out how to self organise themselves – giving each person the space and freedom to choose how they would join in.
Then they had to engage the people in Piracanga and in Caubi, listen to their dreams, play together and have a meeting with the municipality and the whole Caubi community in order to facilitate these dreams to become reality. Finally they had to collect resources organize a whole day of hands on activity which included building a playground for the kids, playing games and cleaning the soccer fields. It was a process of deep learnings, heart connections, smiles and tears. Excitement and frustrations. I am sure lots of powerful seeds were planted in the hearts of each of us and I am looking forward for what will unfold from them. As usual, we said good-bye to Edgard with a circle dance, holding hands and hugs, many hugs.
After that, our closing week was full of music, dance and good food. It officially ended with a beautiful and loving wedding ceremony of Gava and Thais – two UNI participants.
I also had to say good-bye, feeling my heart tight and very happy for all that we lived, all the friends I made, the new work colleagues, all the struggles I had during the time and the intentions for the future. I am very thankful for my homeland Brazil for hosting us, to the YIP team, the Uni team, to Piracanga, the Yip Uni participants and all the other people who made this unique time of live very special. I am a very luck person.
Ps: To see more the Playing for change week, visit the YIPUNI Facebook page. It might the best way to get a feeling of it.
And our epic journey in this video made by Gava and Thais.
My YIPUNI Experience
By Yu Show, YIP participant 
The YIPUNI was a very good experience and I am so grateful, so happy we had this integration.
From the experience of living together and learning together with the Uni I really found myself change so much in a really good and conscious way. A way where now, I understand more the meaning of community and group learning and at the same time I understand more how to contribute in whatever way I can and knowing how to be with people and how to take care of myself.
It was also great for me to see how people changed as well, how important spirituality and the “energy” is for the UNI participants. For the Yippies this was really new, so I observed how some Yippies were more open and interested about “energy”, including myself.
Besides the good parts, there was also not not so easy parts. We were a very big group and at some moments it was hard for me to stand for my opinions. The Brazilians were very good at speaking their feelings and opinions and this is something I really have to learn- how to stop waiting someone else to say what they think and only after speak my opinion.
Sometimes I missed having the feeling that the whole group was together.
I really enjoyed the last day of Edgard´s week when we were all holding hands and dancing together. It was so beautiful and so powerful. I had the feeling that I was so glad to be alive and to be part of this group. The feeling of feeling the group together is so powerful.
I am sure, when it ends, I will miss this Brazilian people a lot, I really appreciate the way they are so willing to give love, encouraging people, be themselves and show their love as well. These were some of the beautiful parts I experience with the UNI students.
By Luiza Tripoli, Uni participant 
It might have seemed like YIPUNI was 60 young people from different parts of the world doing courses together in Brazil, in search of tools to save the planet. And maybe it was, but it was also more than that. When 20 people share a house for 3 months weird things happen.
There were conflicts because someone did not do the dishes, there were nice conversations about life and even a pillow fight over the last piece of cake. And there was something underneath those actions, there was a revolutionary feeling about what we were doing. There was this unsaid emotion that guided us through this period of time, there was love.
When did we forget about that? When did the routine in big cities take away the happiness of sharing life?
The days when you brush your teeth with your friend while others are cooking dinner or telling your roommate about how you are truly feeling and listening to music that some people are learning in the ukulele, this is revolutionary.
Do you understand that it is not about the big scene that we have lived? It is not only about the courses that we can put in our curriculum or the subjects that we talked about. It is about intimacy, about youth, about playfulness… it is about sharing love! What a joy to be part of this revolution.
By Ceci, Uni participant 
Although it sounds cliché, this Gandhi phrase pleases me very much “Be the change you want to see in the world”. It translates my processes during this intense experience that I shared with more than 60 young people from all over the world. All of this living in a sustainable community in the south of Bahia, this place where the hands of the clock don’t follow time and our feet don’t need shoes. By the way, I want to thank nature, especially the sea, for the help when I felt lost and frustrated.
I saw all these days as if I were in my private laboratory and all people were part of me, I welcomed all light and shadow that appeared. It was a healing process of how I behaved in the face of the world’s problems, which are mirrors of what I have inside me.
I used to see things as if we were not all one. Another cliché, which is not as simple to feel and perform, as it is to just speak it. There was a veil that covered my eyes, which was the veil of separation. In my head it was me against the system. There was a “me and them” program living in my thoughts and “they” was evil (this system that sucks the light out of people, which I play aside). To be a rebel, for me, was to stand aside, refuse to inhabit any structure and hate every organization. It was the part of me that didn’t feel responsible for the creation of reality that I myself proposed unconsciously. I still feel out of the box, but that expression now gains a beautiful and light sense inside me. As a New World agent, it is important that I don’t feel comfortable with the dynamics that appear to me; after all, Planet Earth needs me in this vibration for things to evolve. It needs the new, so we walk together, because when I follow my heart and I am myself, I bring what it needs.
So I learned that by embracing my social and political body, I was not accepting things as they are or make war. On the contrary, the world needs people willing to work within the system to elevate it. So it is clear that having self-responsibility and listening to the heart depends on each other, because we only act in the light when we are connected with our essence (what we can also call the inner child). There is only love in matter when the being that acts is connected with what one is. As we performed our Play for Change, I dug within me traumas and limiting beliefs that would not let me be love, happiness, and work in a synchronous flow. I spent hours wondering why things could not be light for me and the group. Well, I created the reality of working with this group, which was always lost. I was lost inside of me. The rigidity of the group was mine and the lack of play, it was this piece of mine that did not want to hear my inner child.
What parts of me lived in a shortage of resources? Do I recognize the abundance in me? What parts of me were in this state of intense stress and why? What is the source of this frustration? When was the first time I felt it in my life? Why do my colleagues affect me so much? What is he trying to show me? What is the reflection of this mirror?
This other being, this environment, this situation are all parts of me showing themselves to be healed and receptive of love.
I spent so much time criticizing the system, that it was a shock when I could create it freely. It was then that the masks fell and I was able to work actively. After all, we are fed daily to be passive and submissive. In fact, the greatest act of rebellion is to know and love ourselves. These tools are not given to us on purpose, but the light will be stronger and love is more powerful.
Our most precious jewel is the lightness of play. Play to test, experiment, dream, do, undo. When we play, there is no mistake, no fault; there is only what one is, therefore there is only love. The creation of the New World will be fluid, light, intuitive and entertaining, just like a child.
But someone can say that better than me: Sofia, 9 “Everyone can do everything, just dream and try.”
WHAT NOW?
For the UNIs the program is over and each one is now following their own life path.
For the Yippies it is time for the internships! Nepal, Egypt, Spain, Brazil, Israel and The Philippines.
In the next newsletter, Yippies will share the updates of their new adventures and learnings.