2020 Micro-Grant Winner: António Carlos da Cruz Patrão
About António:
I´m a forester at the Portuguese Forest Service since 1994. Through these years I mainly worked in wildland fire management and wildfire prevention (in both national and international context). Currently I´m serving the Portuguese Integrated Fire Management Agency. I’m a Phd Candidate in “Territory, Risk and Public Policies”, by the University of Coimbra (Portugal), with the Thesis “FirePhotovoice: a participatory community-based approach to wildland fire management”. I also founded the Fire Works NGO with the intention of interconnect art, culture and knowledge about fire for sustainable communities development.
Grant Category: Videography
International Winner: Portugal
Project Title: AÇOR FIRE VOICES
Project Vision:
My project is named “Açor Fire Voices” and it aims to give voice to local communities who take care of the landscapes and in a collaborative process to reinforce their self-esteem. Give voice to their thoughts, their feelings, their stories, theirs needs related to their fire perspective and experiences. This project aims at the end to contribute for a better community development, having the wildland fire and its management as a locomotive. The project will be centered on Communal Lands in Góis and Arganil Municipalities (Açor Mountains, Central Portugal) and intends to produce short Fire Voice Videos and one Fire Photo Voice short film. These communities need support and a fair way to express their voices about their activity, their life and their relationship with wildland fire and a channel to listen other fire stakeholders’ voices, such as firefighters, professionals, and local entities.
Previous Work:
Favorite thing about firefighting:
I truly believe that wildland fire management can help to prepare and empower communities, by education, engineering and engagement with professionals, stakeholders and governments. Wildland fire it´s also art. It´s a human and social issue and all of us should be involved on its management.