The Human Connection, 01/12/2023

RTL Today - The Lisa Burke Show

Linking Luxembourg and Brazil through ARBED, and Riding the Rainbow.
Connections build communities, trust and friendship.
This week, both sets of guests show that links are global and humanity prevails.
A Luxembourg Community in Brazil through ARBED
Dr. Dominique Satana is a Luxembourg-Brazilian historian, screenwriter, director and trans-media storyteller. By chance, on a visit to Brazil, she came across the historical link between the city of João Monlevade, a city in Minas Gerais, and Luxembourg, due to its 'red earth'.
As part of her Ph.D. research, Dominique dug into the personal histories of many families based both in João Monlevade and Esch-sur-Alzette, the steel-mining region of Luxembourg. You can watch her findings on her documentary project “A Colônia Luxemburguesa”.
Through this work Dominique met many João Monlevade residents, including Nadja Lírio, a musician, producer and President-director of the Casa de Cultura Foundation.
Nadja was part of a João Monlevade delegation visiting Luxembourg last week, one of a number of visits since the two towns have been twinned. Dominique's work has empowered local communities to revisit and reframe the importance of their own history and to help heritage education work. Dominique has also been made an honorary citizen of João Monlevade.
Riding the Rainbow
Emanuele Santi launched Riding the Rainbow, in Luxembourg, from his Covid sickbed. Since then the idea, which started as a bike-swap with refugees from his garage, has become a free app over dozens of countries.
The idea is for everyone to be able to help refugees globally.
The original idea was created to help distribute sport items for Ukrainian war refugees in Luxembourg. From this Emanuele met Alena Antyouk. She has a background in child development and was overjoyed to see her own childrens' reactions on receiving the bikes. It was a note of freedom after so much fear plus losing all ties to everything they owned.
Riding the Rainbow promotes the circular economy and solidarity, connecting refugees and locals by redistributing pre-loved items.
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