‘Favelizando’ Universities: project created in Complexo da Maré brings a new perspective to the community

Passing on knowledge, Laerte Breno and Daniele Oliveira are transforming the lives of young people and adults through the UNIFAVELA project, in the Vila do João favela, located in Complexo da Maré, North Zone of Rio de Janeiro.

Laerte is 26 years old, is a Literature student at UFRJ and was born in the Favaleas Complex. He is also a researcher in ​​Public Security, Community Leadership and, today, president of UNIFAVELA-although he considers that the position of president is just a formality.

Daniele also lives in Complexo da Maré, is a history student at UERJ, a double shift intern at the Maré Memories and Identities Nucleus (Maré Museum) and at the UERJ Research and Teaching Practices Laboratory.

The two crossed paths when they met for the first time in a preparatory course offered by Redes da Maré. Years later, within UNIFAVELA, both share the knowledge they are acquiring at the university and teach Portuguese Language and History classes to other teenagers in the favela.

To understand a little more about how the project works, I had a chat with Laerte:

Neuza Nascimento: How did the project start?

Laerte: The project started in 2018, when I decided to help a student on my own. I took a pre-university test in Maré to get into university, and I’ve always wanted to give back to the favela where I live. I use what I learn at the academy to help people who are on the same path I was on in the past. This student was getting ready at Lona Cultural Herbert Vianna, located in Nova Holanda, a favela next to Vila do João, when I happened to stop by.  As I had no anything else to do, I decided to help her. I told her to come back the next day to the same place, and that I was going to call my friend Daniele to teach with me. She called five more mates.  I was in charge of teaching Portuguese, and Dani, who was already in college, was responsible for teaching History. One day, we had a long History and Portuguese Language class focused on ENEM, and the response was amazing, they loved it.  The situation started to repeat itself and the students , who had turned us into teachers, asked for more volunteers, I started looking for it. I went to the university, contacted the people I knew there, and the number of people on the team grew. That was in the second half of 2018, when we were still just a support and not yet a pre-university entrance exam. We called monitoring. But soon after, we had to leave because the number of students had grown, and classes could no longer be held there. At that point, I decided to stop, but Dani called some other people, we all worked together, a student let us his slab, and we started up again. If it weren’t for Daniele, I would have given up halfway there. It was and is a team effort.

Here in Maré there are two other preparatory courses, ours is the third. In these two initiatives, there was also some sort of monitoring, but it was not structured, they were also starting and we decided to unify everything.

Neuza Nascimento: What is the purpose of UNIFAVELA?

Laerte: UNIFAVELA is a socio-educational project. Education is our main focus, so one of our mottos is to “favelizar” spaces to produce knowledge. We understand that it is extremely important to debate the idea of favela production. That’s why, when we receive the students, we talk about the importance of getting to know the territory of Maré as something important, not only for the cultural production but also for the engagement in different situations.

Neuza Nascimento: What are the goals of the project?

Laerte: Our goal is to place young people and adults from Complexo da Maré within public universities or train them for ENEM. But not just that. In addition, we carry out actions outside the classroom. As an example, on the day of the Black Latin American and Caribbean Woman, celebrated on July 25, we will distribute 60 books “Quarto de Espejo”, by Maria Carolina de Jesus, to women here in Maré. We got the books from a Twitter post in which we asked for five books to give to scholarship students. The repercussion was huge, and we got more books than we asked for, so we decided to give them to the women in Maré.

Neuza Nascimento: Does UNIFAVELA carry out other activities, in addition to the preparatory courses?

Laerte: We are thinking of starting a literacy class for children and, as I said, we carry out actions outside the classroom, and one of them is “BrinqueLeitura”. As part of this activity, last year we managed to distribute 100 black dolls and the same number of children’s books, all with racial themes. They were distributed not only to black children, but also to white children, so that everyone understands local and Brazilian diversity. And we have “Maré de Natal” that delivers food handouts  in December to residents in a situation of financial vulnerability, but now there are other projects in Maré doing this work because of the pandemic and, therefore,  decided to focus more on the preparatory course last year.

Neuza Nascimento: How many beneficiaries are enrolled in the project?

Laerte: There are 150 students in total, but this year 2021 we decided to start with just 30 students. We understand, due to the pandemic and other factors, that it would be less complicated for everyone, students, and educators. The age group of beneficiaries is between 18 and 42 years.

Neuza Nascimento: What are the criteria for entering the project?

Laerte: At first, we thought it might make sense to give each candidate a form and do a socioeconomic analysis, but then we decided that didn’t make any sense. All of them live in Complexo da Maré. I have one student who lives in a rented house and another who lives in their own house. The one who lives in their own house might share a single room with five people, and the one who rents a two-room house, might have trouble paying the rent. When we thought about it, the form stopped making sense to us. The open positions are given out through a random drawing that divides people into groups based on their race. More than half of them are for people who say they are black, brown, or Native American. People who say they are white or yellow get the rest..

Neuza Nascimento: How is the team formed?

Laerte: The project is split into five sectors, and we have an average of 40 volunteers. We have between 18 and 20 educators, two for each subject. Last year we did something unprecedented: we became the only preparatory course in Maré to work in two shifts, giving the student a choice of schedule. But we didn’t have time to assess the impact, because a short time later the pandemic hit and everyone was assigned to the night shift. The Pedagogical Sector of the project is composed of about five people; in Institutional Communication there are four and the others are allocated in the remaining sectors, which are Financial, Institutional Development and Legal.

Neuza Nascimento: How is the project maintained?

Laerte: We don’t have any financial support at the moment. In 2018, we used the “boom” that the project had, due to the 100% approval of the participating students at the time when the classes took place on the slab. We took advantage of the engagement in social networks and made an online crowdfunding (crowdfunding) and got a good inflow of resources. We’ve been saving this money up until now, and we’re just now starting to use it. Furthermore, we always use spaces that are provided by others. From the slab we went to the Instituto Vida Real, in the Nova Holanda favela, also in Complexo da Maré, where they gave us space from 2019 to early 2020, and then we had to leave. That’s when we decided to stand on our own two feet: we drew up a statute for our formalization, bought a shelf to set up the library, invested in freight to transport donated furniture such as an office table and student chairs, and rent a room where classes are going to be held. Everything was taken from the 2018 crowdfunding money.

Neuza Nascimento: What are the project’s victories?

Laercio: We have plenty, thank God. Today we have our own space, it’s a rented classroom, but as long as we can afford it, it’s ours. Even though there was a pandemic, we approved students for 2020 and now for 2021. We got tablets for five students, and, of those five, two were accepted. We are an extension project of UFRJ, and that institution gave us an Honorable Mention, which was great. We don’t really like to stick to 2018 because it’s over, but we had 100% approval, and we can’t forget that. From the beginning until today, we had an average of 25 students approved. Another important victory is the Bolsa Auxílio.

Neuza Nascimento: Can you explain to me how Bolsa auxílio works, please?

Laerte: Bolsa Auxílio, a two hundred reais monthly allowance was granted to five students. This money  was taken from 2018 campaign savings. We managed to cover the expenses of Bolsa Auxílio in June, July and August ; those in September, October and November will be financed by partners who have decided to support the campaign by sponsoring students. This scholarship helped a lot in the issue of evasion, it will not save the lives of these students, but it does make a difference.

Neuza Nascimento: What was the biggest challenge of the project to date?

Laerte: The biggest challenge of the project is and has always been to prevent students from dropping out. We understand that we cannot avoid evasion, and, in my opinion, no project can help it. Whoever could do that is locked in a room, in a suit and tie, in the air conditioning. There is no way. What we can and what we do is circumvent the situation, for example, we created two groups to give the option of different schedules, and we came to an area of ​​Maré where there are no preparatory course, which is Vila do João. We are always trying to create mechanisms and ways to ease the student’s early departure. And my biggest challenge is to design the management of a project within the Complexo da Maré, is to think about how to structure a project within the favela. Unfortunately, here, we deal with situations that are out of our control, which is another challenge. And as it is hard to find definite solutions, lessening the dropout rate is what we achieve. For example, to a hungry family, we can provide food handout, but next week, they will still be hungry.

Neuza Nascimento: When the pandemic hit, did the activities continue?

Laerte: In 2020, we kept the project going, but only remotely. We all thought this whole situation would only last a few weeks. We went through a very difficult time; the dropout rate was very high, and we were left with five students. It was very complicated, and we almost gave up, we didn’t see the point in continuing. The problem was not the EAD. EAD is great, the difficulty is the technological exclusion of people. This modality has everything to work out, it can help the student and even their family, but if this student does not have access to internet, a tablet, or a computer and if the teacher does not receive training in this sense, it is almost unfeasible. People demonise distance learning, but it is a pedagogical resource, and every pedagogical resource is valid if it is studied, prepared, and mapped. Distance learning has been around for a long time, and it’s very interesting to think about a book with this as a resource..

Neuza Nascimento: What are the project needs?

Laerte: Today we have a place, but the rent has to be maintained. The financial resources are very important for several reasons, such as remuneration or allowance for educators who could, with this money, pay for transportation, a snack, a meal, or even meet other needs. On the other hand, financial resources are not our only need. The books and papers that are on the shelf were donated, so financial resources are not always a priority and donations help us a lot. When we start the literacy class for children, we want to include playful-pedagogical activities and as they love to paint, draw, cut, we will need a lot of materials to be used during classes. Another need is hygiene and cleaning products so that we can maintain the integrity of the space.

Neuza Nascimento: Any future actions?

Laerte: We are going to hold a practice exam in November; in the medium term, we intend to carry out an action to collect books and increase the library’s collection, which is still very small. With the intention of honouring the writer Maria Carolina de Jesus, we intend to give her name to all the activities of the project during the year 2021, and to elaborate a fundraising campaign so that the volunteers start to have a subsistence allowance or salary.

Did you like the project?

To support, get in touch: contato@unifavela.com.br