Volta Por Cima

Volta Por Cima is a non-profit organisation that promotes social inclusion and cultural diversity through the practice of Capoeira.

Volta Por Cima holds frequent Capoeira workshops and supervises Capoeira classes and projects in Brazil, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia.

Volta Por Cima was founded by Contra Mestre Eurico who is an experienced Capoeira teacher from the Capoeira group Cordao de Ouro.

Cordao de Ouro/Volta Por Cima groups in Sweden:
CDO Volta Por Cima Stockholm
CDO Volta Por Cima Vasteras
CDO Volta Por Cima Helsingborg

Since 2002, Contra-Mestre Eurico has been teaching Capoeira as part of a social project called “Learning from Brazilian Culture” that helped disadvantaged youth in his city by promoting Brazilian cultural activities -in particular Capoeira- in shelters and orphanages. The project provided young people who are too poor to afford them, free Capoeira uniforms and transportation to attend free Capoeira classes so that they can train side by side with “regular” students.

The program rapidly developed into a comprehensive community development/outreach program that was meaningfully contributing to the disadvantaged youths’ lives by bridging recreation, education/training, and social inclusion. Students from the shelters started to develop a different attitude towards school and Brazilian culture in general and their “social mothers” (foster care-givers in the shelters) began to report that the project was positively altering the students’ behaviour.

Moreover, children and teenagers began organizing weekend Capoeira gatherings and inviting the “regular” students to attend. This development allowed the disadvantaged youth to create strong social bonds and to strengthen their social relationship with all sorts of people; they realized that Capoeira is a passion that they could share with the youth of mainstream society.

When Eurico taught Capoeira outside of Brazil, he quickly realized that Capoeira can have a similar integrative effect on non-Brazilians. In Sweden, for example, instead of promoting social inclusion between social classes, playing Capoeira was successful in breaking long-established ethnic barriers and in bringing together people from different cultural backgrounds.

Eurico continues to promote the goals of his organisation “Volta Por Cima” in Australia and New Zealand by creating new Capoeira-based social programs for social inclusion. He is also pursuing a postgraduate research degree on the role of Capoeira as a tool for social inclusion.