Note from BW of Brazil: It’s finally here! Last April we presented to our readers a story about a team of Nigerian cartoonists who sought to bring their original cartoon, Bino and Fino to a Brazilian market in which there are very few black children’s characters nor positive representations of the deep history and influential culture of the African continent. This is a major breakthrough because, even though Brazilian lawmakers passed Law 10.639/2003 making mandatory the teaching of African and Afro-Brazilian History and Culture in all Brazilian schools, the law hasn’t been truly implemented in schools and in fact “has been forgotten by the State and most teachers.”
It’s shameful how Brazil continues to ignore the history of a continent and its people that has had such a strong influence on the nation’s history. Let us not forget that during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, the nation that would become known as Brazil received between 4-5 million African men, women and children, a total that is between 9 and 10 times more than were shipped to the United States. The time has come that the history of the ‘Mother Land’ is taught to its descendants in a way that gives pride to people who carry this influence in their blood, skin, hair and features. We cannot wait on the billionaire owners of Brazil’s powerful media, thus, once again, we must provoke the change we want ourselves and we congratulate the makers of Bino and Fino and wish them success in this important cultural contribution to African and its people worldwide!
Finally! Afro Brazilian Kids now Have A Cartoon Show From Africa
Courtesy of the Bino and Fino Shop
When you talk about Africa in the world of children’s entertainment, very rarely do you see many programs for children to watch to help them learn about the continent. This issue is even more prevalent in Portuguese speaking countries like Brazil where there is a serious lack of media that portrays Africa for children to interact with.
Most children in Brazil know little about their African heritage, African culture, history and the positive impact it has had in Brazil and the world. They are not taught about this in schools, in the books they read or the TV shows they watch.
Brazil has the biggest black African diaspora outside of Africa. It is even larger than that of the U.S.A. Brazil owes most of its wonderful, vibrant, culture to the African roots of its Afro-Brazilian population.
The situation is so bad that the UN is trying to support Brazil in its efforts to integrate African Culture in the national curriculum.
To help counteract this problem we launched a crowd-funder in May to help raise funds to produce a Brazilian Portuguese version of our popular educational African cartoon show Bino and Fino.
WHO WE ARE
The Bino & Fino Show is the number one selling educational cartoon show teaching children about Africa in a genuine way. EVCL animation studio produces the Bino and Fino show in Abuja, Nigeria.
Bino and Fino is about a brother and sister who live in a modern day city in Africa.In each episode Bino and Fino, with the help of their friend Zeena the Magic Butterfly and their family, discover and learn things about Africa and the world.
In many of the episodes children can learn about aspects of Pan African culture and history. The Bino and Fino show has positive role models for children of the Black African diaspora that are sorely missing much of children’s programming around the world.
THE TEAM
We thrilled to announce that we have successfully completed the Portuguese version of the show which is now available for download at our store.
We hope this will help provide more access for Portuguese speaking children in countries like Angola, Portugal, Mozambique and Cape Verde to enjoy African focused children’s media.
Here is an episode from the Portuguese version to watch on our You Tube channel.
Source: Bino and Fino Shop
Is there a website where the Bino and Vino, and other black dolls can be purchased online and shipped within Brasil?