Grupo Mandela was founded in 1980, Salvador Bahia under the initiative of Mestre Zé Carlos, who wanted to remember the great Nelson Mandela and his resistance to racial inequality. That is why the group was named Mandela after a man who is a symbol of freedom and a world in which everyone is equal.
Since 2006, one of the founders of the Mandela group, Mestre Baratino, has been working in Prague (Czech Republic), where he tries to show capoeira the way he himself learned it. He spreads not only capoeira, dance, language, but much more - lifestyle and philosophy.