CHILDREN-BRAZIL: An Untapped Mine of Innovative Social Projects

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 21 2001 (IPS) - Brazil is a mine of innovative social projects that have been successful in opening up new horizons for disadvantaged youngsters. However, the government has failed to take full advantage of such programmes in its efforts to fight crime and social marginalisation.

One of the most outstanding initiatives is the Axé Project, which has helped reinsert more than 11,000 street children in Salvador, the capital of the northeastern state of Bahia, into school and society since 1990.

The project uses art, sports and skills training, with discipline agreed on with the youngsters themselves, as instruments in the “re-socialisation” of street children.

The initiative is based on the “pedagogy of desire,” a current of thought that focuses on discovering or awakening the interests or desires of children in order to motivate them.

Despite the project’s recognised scope and success, it was not included in the 30 initiatives selected as models by “Cultivating Life, Disarming Violence”, a study published last August in Brazil by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

“Experiences in education, culture, entertainment, sports and citizenship involving young people in situations of poverty” is the sub-title of the 583-page UNESCO book, which seeks to point out routes towards creating a culture without violence and drugs by detailing 30 exemplary programmes, almost all of which have been implemented by non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Sociologist Mary García Castro, who coordinated the study, told IPS that the Axé Project was not included because it is already well-known, and “ample literature” on it already exists. For that reason, she said, 30 lesser-known successful practices were selected.

She added that descriptions of 222 different projects researched for the study can be found in Portuguese at the www.unesco.org.br/pesquisa website.

Many of the projects have already been exported to other Latin American countries and Africa.

But UNESCO believes more should be done in Brazil to give wide dissemination to such initiatives, and to expand their scope through greater cooperation between the public, private and NGO sectors.

Although governments at the national and local level help fund many of the practices, “the government’s participation, in terms of resources, leaves a lot to be desired,” said García Castro.

According to UNESCO, more needs to be done to “give visibility to the experiences, provide incentives for companies and international organisations to support the projects, and encourage government backing for the initiatives.”

Only now is the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso beginning to incorporate sports as a tool for social integration and improving school achievement and involvement, by attempting to provide sports activities in all public schools.

But the incorporation of the arts as regular subject matter rather than simply extracurricular activities is still limited to local and municipal initiatives, or to specific schools.

In areas like the municipality of Volta Redonda, 150 kms from Rio de Janeiro, attempts have been made to reintroduce music courses, which formed a part of the public school curriculum in Brazil from the 1930s to the 1960s due to the influence of Heitor Villa-Lobos, a celebrated classical music composer who was also a schoolteacher.

But it is not likely that in the foreseeable future the public school system will incorporate experiences that have brought excellent results in cities throughout Brazil, such as teaching ballet to children living in extreme poverty. In general, such initiatives remain complementary to formal schooling.

The 30 exemplary practices selected by the UNESCO study are characterised by a great diversity of activities and resources, and vary widely in size, although they share the same principles and objectives.

The list ranges from the Fundacao Gol da Letra, created by footballers Raí and Leonardo to rescue children at risk in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city, by providing cultural and sports activities to complement the regular school programme, to the Committee for the Democratisation of Informatics, which distributes computers and offers courses in poor communities in several cities.

The UNESCO study also describes a few innovative government initiatives like the Programme for Attention to Children and Adolescents (PACA) carried out by the city government of Camaragipe, in Pernambuco, another state in Brazil’s impoverished northeast.

High rates of teen pregnancy, affecting 40 percent of girls in the city, and youth violence led the local government of Camaragipe to offer young people in poor neighbourhoods courses in dance, computers, and graphic arts, with discussions on violence, sex education and a special emphasis on environmental questions.

Fun is a key component of all of the projects, said García Castro. Studies on youth violence in large cities point to a lack of recreational spaces and facilities in poor neighbourhoods and public schools.

Hence the success of the Schools for Peace Initiative carried out in Rio de Janeiro, which consists of keeping schools open on the weekend for cultural activities involving the community.

García Castro said some of the shared objectives on which the 30 exemplary practices are based are to give a voice to the young and encourage them to become more involved in society, to link ethical and aesthetic values, to stress culture as a generator of self-esteem and even jobs, and to promote a link between society and politics.

The success of the projects was measured, in general terms, by improvement in school performance and the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents.

The Axé Project has shown marked success in keeping its participants from returning to the criminal activities many of them engaged in when they were living on the streets, said the programme’s founder and coordinator, Cesare la Roca.

Nevertheless, the hundreds of projects researched by UNESCO in Brazil have a limited reach, attending to an average of 200 people, said García Castro, in a country where 35 million youngsters – around 40 percent of youths in this country of 170 million – live in poverty.

Civil society organisations in Brazil are calling for public policies and partnerships with the state that would enable them to serve more youngsters. García Castro said NGOs are aware of their limitations. They realize that they cannot replace the state, nor must they fall into a “culturalist bias,” ignoring the role the economy must play in eradicating poverty, she added.

However, the practices selected by UNESCO are economical, and expanding them would not demand a huge investment, said Jorge Werthein, UNESCO representative in Brazil. He stated that for every dollar invested in this kind of social project, eight dollars are saved in the fight against crime.