In Guatemala City, the young members of Caja Lúdica arts collective are, as one of them puts it, ‘fighting for peace’.
Their weapons are music, dance and carnival, and their battle plan is to recapture public spaces for enjoyment and togetherness.
When the bullets are flying overhead in Guatemala City’s most notorious slums, it might seem hard to grasp exactly how stiltwalking could help stop the shooting.
But spend a couple of days with Caja Lúdica, and the link becomes crystal clear.
View our Caja Lúdica gallery
Highest murder rate in the Americas
We’re in some of the most dangerous streets of the world here. According to 2006 figures, Guatemala now has the highest murder rate in the whole of Latin America.
Step forward jugglers. And artists, dancers, musicians, poets, acrobats, actors and, yes, stiltwalkers.
This they do despite death threats, and in defiance of death itself.
Mariela, 24, has lost eight of her friends to gang violence, but remains certain of her path.
‘In the midst of violence and the shadow of war, Caja Lúdica offers young people a way to heal the wounds and find another way forward,’ she explains.
is turned away
Caja Lúdica’s way of working is simple. They kick start their work in a particular school or neighbourhood with a spectacular carnival parade.
After astounding onlookers with their dexterity, they soon return to start free workshops for youngsters who want to learn to do the amazing things they have seen.
There’s a lot of interest. After all, entertainment options are pretty limited in these areas – and nobody is turned away. Gang members are welcomed along with everybody else.
And so begins a process the Caja Lúdica staff call ‘sensitisation’. Interested youngsters learn teamwork, breathing and relaxation techniques alongside the technical skills of gymnastics or guitar.
The idea is to reconnect brutalised young people with their sense of humanity through activities ranging from quiet meditation to deafening drum-beats, from personal reflection to public performance.
Within about 18 months, youngsters who’ve stayed the course are ready to strike out into a new community, putting on a carnival parade of their own and sparking off a fresh wave of workshops that they lead themselves.
The rise of Rhoje
Just seven years after starting out, Caja Lúdica-supported youth groups are now active in 19 schools or communities, in many of the most deprived and dangerous neighbourhoods in the country.
Rhoje set about reclaiming Mezquital’s outdoor spaces from the gangs.
One such area, the notorious slum of Mezquital, was long classified among the country’s most violent ‘red zones’. That was before Caja Lúdica inspired a group of youngsters here to set up their own arts group, Rhoje.
With Caja Lúdica’s training and support, Rhoje set about reclaiming Mezquital’s outdoor spaces, through music festivals, street theatre and roadside poetry readings.
The group were sometimes mistaken for a gang themselves. Braving the wrath of the police, the mayor and the gangs took no little courage.
On one occasion Rhoje, mid-performance, were told they had ten minutes to leave the area, or face execution. They decided, as one, to stand their ground. Fortunately, the bullets never came.
Just two years after Rhoje began their work they discovered, to their great pride, that their home, Mezquital, had been removed from the national list of red zones.
So there you have it: sometimes stiltwalking really can stop bullets.
Christian Aid backs Caja Lúdica with an annual grant of £21,000/€30,300. It is one of several groups we support around the world that use arts as a tool for change. For example there's KCAP, a youth project in South Africa which uses performance to educate local people about issues such as crime and HIV.