Orgulho em Acolher | Episódio 01: Casa Aurora

I remember when
I came to Salvador,

I had no one here.

I came with a dream of studying.
Of getting my university degree.

And when I arrived here, I managed to get
into college, but I didn't stay long.

But the desire to be in Salvador remained.
Being black,

discovering myself as a travesti,
in the beginning of my transition,

wanting to study. The only thing that stopped me

was the lack of a safe space to stay.

Then I was offered the support
from Casa Aurora, the Dawn Home.

I think there's a social ignorance,
there's a...

in short, an injustice against
our community.

And when a space opens up that understands,
that prioritizes

in supporting and embracing our community,

a sensitive and fragile community,

there's this space...

it's of an importance

that I can't even explain.

But like, I don't know, maybe monumental. You know?

And Casa Aurora is born from a dream.

Me and my former partner, we
sheltered people in our apartment.

We had some friends that arrived from other places
and needed some kind of assistance,

so they came and stayed at our home.

And then we started to realize that
this kept increasing.

So it came out of that need.

And, before we realized it, there was a constant
flow of people inside our home.

Then we started

to think and design a project so that
we could welcome and shelter people.

First, Casa Aurora helped me discover myself
as a person, my identity.

It helped me set the foundation for my identity,

determine and establish the fundamentals
of who I am today.

I think Casa Aurora
set my foundations as a person.

It made me strong, it made me dream,

it made me believe in other possibilities beyond what
society prepares for our bodies, you know?

I feel like a much better person like this

and I don't know what would have been of me
if I hadn't gone through Casa Aurora, you know?

It was an experience that was
so important in my life.

Casa Aurora – well, not just Casa Aurora.

I believe all other shelters are important

precisely for welcoming people who are
thrown out of their homes for being who they are.

And we understood that this was a
matter of family education, right?

And we know the institutions that are
most violent with LGBT+ people

are their homes and schools.

These are the two environments that are more

complex, from the point of view of sheltering.

And Casa Aurora had its importance
exactly because, beyond sheltering,

we had a legacy of
building Black communities,

we strengthened these folks

so that they felt at home,
felt integrated

so that they started to breathe again.

I think I wouldn't have come to Salvador,

I wouldn't have discovered that I am a travesti.

I left a a place where I couldn't
even know who I was.

It was practically impossible for me...

to be able to look at myself and
embrace myself as I really was.

And coming to Salvador with the idea to study

there was something else there,
behind the scenes.

The chance to discover myself, too.

I felt that there was something still there
and I had to come...

So I come to Salvador and
I have nowhere to stay...

But then the place to stay emerges
and that's where I find myself,

it's where I flourish, and it's where I...

Where everything happens. And if
I hadn't gone through Casa Aurora,

if I...

if it hand't existed in my life,
I would've returned,

I wouldn't have found myself,
I'd be living unhappy

or many other things could've happened,

I could be in a depression

and...

Anyway, I mean... I couldn't
even had gone after my dreams.

Of being a singer, of being a model.

Which happened...

And...

That's it. If I hadn't...

I mean...

I wouldn't be.

I wouldn't be.

That's it.

What makes me the proudest is seeing people
that have stayed in the shelter,

For example, Oda.

Oda is someone who went through the shelter,
she's a model, she travelled to São Paulo,

reconnected with her family
after Casa Aurora

strengthened herself in her
identity as a trans person.

We also have Duda, who was one of
the first people we sheltered.

She fled home because she's
a bisexual woman.

Nowadays she has a son,

and we have a relationship that she
says her son is my grandson.

Imagine that, I'm so young!

But she was our first sheltered person.

So every Father's Day, Christmas,
New Year's, any holiday.

She sends me a message.

This relationship strengthens itself, you know?

This, to me, there's no money
that can buy it.

And I love holidays.

Christmas,

Good Friday.

So, this space that people
didn't have at their homes

for being LGBT+

when they arrived at Casa Aurora,
this was reestablished for them.

The Suppers for Good Friday and Christmas,

all of that, to me, has been
so positive at Casa Aurora.

Today, we don't operate as a physical space
because of the costs.

It's very expensive to maintain a
shelter in Brazil.

Especially without any support from the government.

Because the more people we had in the shelter,
the more costs we had, right?

Because there's water, electricity,
food, bread...

In the end, there are countless things
you need to address.

Then someone needs help with commuting costs,
someone else needs medication...

All of that

means costs, you know?

Our biggest challenge was to
maintain the space.

Because the civil society has always
supported our physical space.

But civil society can't always afford it.

It's a dream that we can reopen a
physical space – and a structured one, too.

I think that if

we benefited from tax incentive laws,

of laws for sheltering the
LGBT+ community,

with a government that worked in favor
of this community,

for sure we wouldn't go through so much
trouble to keep the space operating.

My actual dream is that LGBT+ shelters
didn't exist, you know?

That people weren't thrown out of
their homes for being who they are.

But if they are...

May this space be one that welcomes
and supports and that it has longevity.

That's my dream.

That Casa Aurora comes back
more powerful, stronger.

My biggest dream is that we come back.

But my biggest dream is
that we come back

but not come back like
"well, it's open and it's there".

but that we come back with guarantees,

with guarantees that are even
in our Constitution, you know?

That we come back with resources,
that we come back with accessibility,

that we have a space where people will work there,

and that they'll support folks
in the way they need to be supported.

That we have a kind of catapult

so that these folks that are sheltered,

that we have partnerships
that can employ these folks.

Because it's not enough if
they're sheltered

and they can't work,

because they will end up back
in sheltering, as it has happened.

So that's a dream,

that's a collective dream

of all the people that built together
this idea of Casa Aurora.

Well, that it grows, that it comes back and that

it branches out,

that there are other Casas Aurora.