Project provides preparatory exam for college entrance exam for young people and adults in Baixada Fluminense

The Pré Vestibular Bom Pastor was created in 2017 and is located in the Jesus Bom Pastor neighborhood in Belford Roxo, a region that carries lots of fight struggles that took place in the 80s and 90s.

With the objective to bring back the social movement that once existed there, the project now has representatives of Nova Iguaçu, São João de Meriti and Belford Roxo, and has as its goals, since its creation, to assist young people and adult to join a university and be an alternative to the violence present locally, bringing to the heart of the territory discussions about the daily life of the population, human rights and violence.

The foundation was based on a partnership initiated by a group of social activists: Rafael Andrade, from UNEAFRO Brasil; Marta Batista, from NIDES; and Douglas Almeida, at the time, articulator of the project Fórum Grita Baixada.

Operation

The project was highly welcomed by Father Dimas and the local community. As a result, many activities happened – and still happens – in the Catholic Church Jesus Bom Pastor. 

Since the beginning, the main beneficiaries of the project are low-income residents of Bom Pastor neighborhood and surroundings. Most of them are black people.

Vanessa Vicente, coordinator of UNEAFRO Brasil and of Pré Vestibular Bom Pastor, comments on the project ‘s operation:

“During the pandemic, when social isolation was necessary, there was a huge effort between the students, teachers and partners for keeping the online classes. But now the Pré Vestibular Bom Pastor takes place in person and runs on saturdays, from 8AM to 6PM, focusing mainly on preparatory modalities for ENEM and the UERJ Entrance Exam, and also on formations related to the social and political constructive-knowledge of the students and the surrounding community.

Numbers

Vanessa Vicente continues to say that, in five years of existence, the Pré Vestibular Bom Pastor has already impacted, directly, more than 400 people with the breadth of training in the course and that an average of 30 students have already got into college. She recalls that, during this period, the initiative is living with a high rate of school drop-out for many reasons and that it is also aggravated by the two-year pandemic.

The partner of Pré-Vestibular Popular Bom Pastor and territories articulator of Fórum Grita Baixada, Lorene Monteiro Maia, talks about the challenges faced by the project:

“The major challenges faced are the lack of adequate infrastructure, that now is much better with the help of partners and the own collaborators; the shortage of funding from public and private tenders, that are increasingly rare; by the violence that affects directly the neighborhood and by the dismantling of education and precarization of life. It is not uncommon for students dropping out of school and the course in order to work or because they can’t keep themselves in a normal study routine. This besides  the difficulties they face to stay in College, once they get in. That’s why our goal is not only to enable the student to enter college, but also seek a permanence policy. And, lastly, we have one more challenge: the expenses with food and transport for educators and outside classes, internet in the classroom for media devices, among others”.

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To know more about the Pré-Vestibular Bom Pastor, check the pages on Instagram and Facebook.