Rita Conceição and Margaret Willson - the friendship that is ending poverty

Every now and then an unintended detour becomes so meaningful that it changes one’s entire journey. This is a story of how one stopover in a Brazilian shantytown forever changed the life of the author and led to a global community working to end poverty for some of our world’s most disadvantaged people, impoverished African-Brazilian girls.

A China scholar on a professorial track, Willson is persuaded by a Brazilian friend to take advantage of a cheap layover between Europe and Australia in Bahia, Brazil. Known for its white sand beaches and enchanting culture, Bahia is also home to vast shantytowns, grinding poverty, and unparalleled inequality. Willson, an anthropologist, lives for one month amongst this poverty and vows to return at the end of her stay. She returns to spend over three years living in the shantytowns, where she befriends Rita Conceição, an African-Brazilian activist. Together, Margaret and Rita set out to change the violence and despair they see around them.

It is a story that takes us to a world of drug dealers, street urchins and capoeiristas, English socialites, power-hungry ‘do-gooders’ and wise teachers from surprising corners of society. The end result is a learning center that supports African-Brazilian girls as they go from illiteracy to university. Through her well-told story of one community’s effort to alleviate poverty, Willson inspires everyone working to make a difference in our world to start small, be open to learning, and not be afraid to take the journey where ever it leads you.

Written with passion and knowledge, Dance Lest We All Fall Down won a Silver Medal for Multicultural Literature in the 2008 Independent Book Awards.The author tells the story through dramatic interwoven episodes taken from detailed anthropological notes made at the time the events unfolded. Willson takes the reader through life-transforming encounters tinged with violence, sexuality, greed, love, betrayal and a stubborn will to survive. Readers become a part of the unique friendship between the author and her African-Brazilian activist partner and share the rise and fall of their turbulent journey from dreaming of a better world to making it a reality.