Mestres da Obra - Human Development in Civil Construction
Mestres da Obra is a Social Organization that promotes the personal and collective development of civil construction workers. As a core activity, Art and Humanities Workshops are setup within construction sites where workers take part actively in the sessions together with professionals from different areas, aiming at the quality of life in the daily work and the construction of sustainable values. The activities take place within working hours, valuing the worker as a producer of knowledge.
Cross-border/international
Portugal
Other
Brazil
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Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2023-01-25
As an individual
First name: Arthur Last name: Pugliese Gender: Male Nationality: Brazil Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Rua São Cristóvão Mafamude, 59. 5o esquerdo. Town: Vila Nova de Gaia Postal code: 4430-225 Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 925 874 485 E-mail:arthur@mestresdaobra.org.br Website:http://www.mestresdaobra.org.br
Mestres da Obra is a Social Organization that promotes the personal and collective development of civil construction workers. As a core activity, Art and Humanities Workshops are setup within construction sites where workers take part actively in the sessions together with professionals from different areas, aiming at the quality of life in the daily work and the construction of sustainable values. The activities take place within working hours, valuing the worker as a producer of knowledge, in addition to building walls.
Sustainability
Culture
Inclusion
Mental Health
Creativity
Sustainability has been part of the DNA of the Mestres da Obra Organization since its idealization and is in line with the objective of our mission; to strengthen social, environmental and cultural issues in the ecosystem in which we operate.
In the social sphere, we believe that every human being needs to express their ideas, their experiences and their feelings. They are the result of our daily experiences and habits, which lead to individual and collective development. In this coexistence with oneself and the other, there is a set of references that allow each member of a given society to move, express themselves, think, love, work, avoid fear and protect themselves from the unknown. Still, in the social sphere, it is worth mentioning that most of these workers are migrants from other countries. This migratory movement generates the fragmentation of identity. When leaving the land where they were born and where they grew up, the migrant loses known references, generating an experience of helplessness. This has been met through the relationship between the construction works and students from UMinho University, who visited the construction site and art atelier on a weekly basis to share life stories.
From an environmental point of view, this pillar is practised in the ateliers through the transformation of construction waste into art, increasing awareness about reuse, disposal and conscious consumption. This awareness process also takes place through art exhibitions in the construction site itself, as well as in external exhibition spaces such as galleries and museums.
Finally, the cultural pillar is a literally edifying part of the relationships we have with the workers who are there, creating the art pieces. The intention is not to form artists, but to bring to light the possibility of seeing things, people and situations in a different way. This for us is the great role of Culture. "Art helped me overcome my fear of making mistakes", Valdomiro Nogueira.
The artistic content produced in the Ateliê Mestres da Obra together with the workers presents an intense aesthetic expressiveness, which manifested different points of view of a collective of workers inserted in a context of sociocultural miscegenation, the result of the migration processes characteristic of this industry.
This collection has such a strong aesthetic and human value that it gained space in art galleries, usually frequented by “differentiated” people, and sometimes with greater purchasing power.
And on this path between the construction site and the gallery, two equally positive experiences actually happen.
The first takes place in society, making curators, art thinkers and opinion makers recognize the existence of a collective capacity for creation among workers, which goes beyond laying bricks, carrying cement or bending iron.
The other takes place with the workers, valuing these people as artists, promoting self-esteem and strengthening their uniqueness.
And this is wonderful because the person shows himself/herself to be the owner of his/her own history and of a creative capacity that allows him/her to contribute to the transmission of knowledge and cultural expression.
In this way, we have the clarity that the objectives of the project are intrinsically linked to the fact that the human being, as a species, is an artistic being, and that through art, design, words, music and theatre, can live a personal and collective experience that expresses his/her emotions and communicates his/her subjective and real universe.
Perhaps it is these feelings that make the Mestres da Obra Project a great example of how the arts and humanities bring benefits to an entire ecosystem that was hitherto invisible and reactive.
Taking advantage of the fact that the workers are gathered in a single space is a unique opportunity to be part of the work context at the construction site, integrally and throughout the working day. It is to be with them and for them. In this case, the sense of inclusion and impact is greatly expanded. It is very likely that the vast majority of workers, at the end of a long day of physical and mental effort, are more interested in going home than moving to other activities. Leisure for the vast majority of workers is on Sundays, with family and friends. The week is directly linked to the equation work x remuneration.
"It's like we have small doses of Sunday during the week."
It is important to point out that the Mestres da Obra Project also operates in the spheres of the leadership at the construction work, aligning expectations and challenges of a systemic nature, especially in relations with leaders with an extremely production-oriented mindset, 100% focused on accelerating production and managing financial resources. When these people align themselves with the purpose of the Mestres da Obra Project, they are the first to realize the importance of having more quality of life at work for everyone there.
“This satisfaction makes people work happier and more focused, increasing the productivity and financial health of everyone involved.” (Armando Psychologist)
Another, no less important, factor is the fact that all activities implemented by the project at the construction site, expand the understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and collaborate to strengthen access to essential skills for the development of models and practices with a focus on personal protagonism and full citizenship.
Starting from the process of including the direct beneficiary mentioned above, their involvement in the project becomes an effective and integral part of daily work. It's like being in two places at once. The construction site becomes a sociocultural piece of equipment, regardless of what is being built. It then becomes an important social facility that contributes to the enhancement of social capital in civil construction, and in the training of people for the most different types of awareness, be it Social, Cultural, Environmental or Economic.
“Workers are paid not only for building walls, bending iron and mixing cement but also for creating, exchanging knowledge and getting to know themselves and their co-workers better.” (Arthur, Co-founder of the Mestres da Obra project)
“This awakens in me new ways of seeing and feeling my work. Now I get home and have more things to talk about with my wife and kids.”
“Something curious happens in a construction site where the Mestres da Obra Project takes place. Workers begin to talk more about their lives, highlight opinions and life experiences, and sometimes point out or claim better conditions at work in a less aggressive or forceful way.”
This involvement of the worker in the project causes a chain of positive transformation in the ecosystem of relationships at the construction site. The hierarchy is horizontalized, making room for healthier, safer work environments filled with respectful relationships.
The Mestres da Obra project was conceived by an architect, who was not happy at the construction site where he worked. “I was unhappy. I saw fearful workers, stressed engineers and worried owners. Everyone felt the levels of stress and demand established in the environment, which is a toxic way that helped to ensure that nothing really interesting happened in our day-to-day work. Lunchtime, and time to go home, were possibly the best times of the day.” Two things could have been done by the architect: Change to another type of work or change the work environment where he was. He opted for the second. At the local level, in a few months the practice of what would become the Mestres da Obra project gained supporters and the help of work leaders. At this very moment, it was realized that such a utopia was real. The architect resigned and set up the Mestres da Obra Social Organization, expanding the project to the regional sphere, working on some construction sites in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, still in the pilot phase. We learned to relate to different organizational cultures among the companies that supported us, which allowed us to have enough experience to try to expand to the practice and national level, which happened very solidly. We began to exchange experiences and knowledge with other social organizations, institutes and universities, which were actively involved in joint projects and actions, enhancing the organization's mission. At the regional level, we won the Human Rights seal from the city of São Paulo and the support of UNESCO with an urban revitalization project in the municipality of Mariana (Minas Gerais BR), the site of an unprecedented socio-environmental tragedy. As a result of this trajectory, the Mestres da Obra Social Organization took its first step towards internationalization, launching the practice in European territory, specifically in the city of Guimarães, Portugal. Now, little by little, we are trying to seek support and initiatives
Discipline: Art and education.
Knowledge Fields: Philosophy, Ecology, Work, and Pluriversity.
These are the disciplines, and some of the areas of knowledge that converge and bring us closer to the social, artistic, and emotional scope that illuminates the Mestres da Obra Project. It is a path of its own and at the same time joint, which built bridges between work (sometimes medieval) and the challenges of contemporaneity in the search for lightness. And it is precisely for responding to these challenges that the Mestres da Obra Project is appreciated in the world of civil construction. It is not a romantic view of the capitalist dichotomy at work, but rather an attempt to implement new practices that contribute to the desirable and, welcome local and global coexistence.
Value explores possibilities, what was once a utopia becomes real. The invisible becomes visible.
By getting in touch with the most intimate imaginary, being able to exchange knowledge, and practicing artistic making, the senses are renewed, and naturally, we are led to review the meanings we attribute to things.
The power of a new vision comes to light, a new understanding of how to deal with certain problems, setbacks, and, mainly, new possibilities for solving them.
Sharing these values, we believe that art, education, and sustainability add important protection in the formation of citizenship and people's well-being, in the legitimization of things, and in the healthy questioning of meanings.
This may make us freer people. Free to think, to create, and who knows how to be ourselves.
From a quantitative point of view, throughout our history, more than 50 thousand workers in more than 500 construction sites have already participated in the project. We were contemplated for more than 10 awards linked to the social, cultural and environmental areas at national and international levels. We obtained the Human Rights seal from the municipality of São Paulo - Brazil and the recognition of UNESCO for the urban regeneration work developed by the Mestres da Obra Organization together with FLACSO (Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences) in the city of Mariana, MG - Brazil, local of one of the greatest socio-environmental tragedies in Brazil.
From a qualitative, human point of view, we had the pleasure and honour of collaborating for the personal development of more than 50,000 workers, including Brazil and Portugal. There was a worker who became a poet. There was a worker who gave up drugs, another who fixed his teeth and many others who, by getting to know themselves better, came to know each other better.
Throughout our journey of more than 20 years, and without pretense, we have never come across or known of any educational practice organized in the form of an NGO, linked to the arts and humanities, and that acted specifically within construction sites. A pity when dealing with a vast ecosystem, lacking processes linked to the continuous human development of workers. This is likely because practice is not hostage to the Cartesian logic of the world of causes and effects. It breaks with the operating matrix imposed by construction sites and proposes something completely new in environments marked by repetition, hierarchy and meritocracy.
The scarce existence of recipes and models on which we could base ourselves forced us to create a very particular work history of education and human development, which still makes experimentation and learning constant. The whole process is directly linked to the need for systemic change, permeated by mistakes, lessons, returns, temporary advances, reflections, and immense satisfaction at each successful step.
The union of all this marked the maturing moments of the practice and provided the opportunity for the arrival of the project in European territory.
The methodology used in the activities is organized to represent and take ownership of the work routine at construction sites. All movements, flows, colours, and materials serve as a reference for the creation and production of artistic content. However, the Mestres da Obra Project purposely inverts some values, and this is precisely the educational core of the action.
In this exercise of a new reading of daily work, the materials that until then were seen as residues of the work, become raw material for art. And contrary to what traditionally happens in this industry, the project of what is intended to be created does not belong to others, but to the worker himself, who starts to express his own wishes, subjectivities and aesthetic and cultural references. This makes the construction site a privileged space for strengthening the worker's intelligence and health. In this way, every idea and sharing of these life stories behind the process becomes an intangible heritage. It is internal raw material. It is the human before the worker that we seek to bring to light.
We then become a knowledge production device that strengthens the worker's intelligence, as it encourages the conscious use of basic knowledge present in the act of working: relating, feeling, thinking and inventing.
And from this process of worker interaction with the transmission of values, with art references, and tools that sharpen awareness and a more accurate perception of things, we create spaces for valuing the knowledge and talents of those who learn, reducing the barrier between those who know and can, and those who don't and can't.
The Mestres da Obra project can be replicated in any construction context, for any type of worker, and can be implemented by educators, artists or any group organized in the form of an NGO, Association or collective. The Mestres da Obra Organization offers training and learning processes for the proper development of the Mestres da Obra methodology, and for the success of new partners who want to take the project to a construction site.
The great challenge lies in the partnership with construction companies that are able and willing to open their sites to this experience. Of course, like any other project, there are costs involved that must be dealt with by future partner organizations of the Mestres da Obra project. Anywhere in the world.
The Mestres da Obra Project works on themes related to global challenges which we consider important for the ecosystem in which the project is inserted. We also consider solutions to strengthen the ESG of partner companies (environmental, social, governance)
ENVIROMENTAL (sustainability)
- Environmental awareness, reuse and intelligent use of construction materials and their life cycles; recycling of individual materials such as food and packaging.
- Life cycles, Conscious consumption, energy expenditure and philosophy on the practice of sustainability in the present and consequences for future generations.
- Comprehensive hygiene and consequences for personal and public health: personal hygiene, in public places, at work and at home.
SOCIAL (social)
- Mental Health: self-knowledge and self-care;
- Gesture intelligence: Valuing craft knowledge
- Valuing the individual and their trajectory; artistic awakening as an instrument of conscience;
- Encouraging the protection of culture and its heritage;
- Combating violence, racism, sexism and misinformation;
- Inclusion: diversity and coexistence among different people;
- Awareness of irresponsible parenting, alcoholism and drugs;
- Culture of peace, interpersonal relationships and the environment.
- Migration and psychosocial consequences.
- Quality and Safety at work.
GOVERNANCE and LEADERSHIP PROGRAMS
- Training Masters of the Work multipliers;
- Leadership and TeamBulding Program for engineering and safety technicians;
- Interlocution between hierarchical and specific levels of the company;
- Transmission of values to employees and management
- Self-management: encouraging worker proactivity;
- Risk Management: creative collaboration with safety technicians in reducing accidents at work;
- Improvements in productivity: reduction of absences, turnover, etc.;
- Training in ethical concepts;
- Creating reports based on ESG metrics.
