During the month of February Happy Child International’s Chair of the Board John Doddrell and I are visiting our partner projects in Recife and other areas of Pernambuco in Northeast Brazil.
We are really looking forward to spending time with the partners and collaborators who make it possible to deliver Happy Child International’s vision for a “world where every child and young person realizes their full potential in a safe and secure environment”.
We will be visiting 4 different projects that are supported by the charity but we will be getting to know some new projects too. All of these projects work with children and young people from low-income communities with the purpose of giving them opportunities and choices that will improve their lives.
Today there are still significant social challenges facing children and young people in this region. These challenges are particularly acute in the areas of education and access to the world of Technology.
We are visiting Project Tamandaré where the team deliver education to 400 children from low income families aged between 2- 5 years old. According to “Todos Pelas Crianças 2021” only 27.8% of the poorest children from ages 0 to 3 are in creche compared to 54.3% of children from the highest earning households.
This project is doing great work with the very young from low income communities in their area.
This year we have supported the Mentoring and Skills Training Project which works with young people from low income communities to equip them for work.
In 2021 there were 12.7 million young people in Brazil who were neither working nor studying out of a population of 215,000,000. Access to higher education is still a challenge for young people from low income communities and this project provides an opportunity for these young people to learn skills for work. University of the People state that Brazil has one of the highest drop out rates in primary, secondary and tertiary education levels. This tends to be because of:
Poverty.
Loss of interest in education in the public sector schools due to them offering a lower quality of education.
The high cost of education and the competition from private sector students for higher education opportunities which are funded by the state.
Brazil’s education establishments face challenges to acquire and benefit from technology. On the Mentoring and Skills Training Project the students have had the opportunity to learn basic IT skills for work.
However many educational establishments in rural areas still struggle to have adequate IT provision for children and young people, particularly in state schools for lower income families. Trusted research illustrated that in 2021 17,124 schools providing Basic Education in the Northeast did not have computers according to the Educational Census between 2015-2021. This statistic is compared to 958 in the more prosperous south.
Likewise in 2021 15,574 schools providing Basic Education did not have internet access in the region compared to 630 in the more prosperous south.
Happy Child International is supporting another project this year which will provide training in IT skills for 40 children and young people from low income communities on Saturday mornings. We think this is a really positive investment and are pleased to be visiting this project. Our visit to the more rural area of the state will illustrate the reality of some of the struggles children and young people from low income communities are facing.
We hope that Happy Child International can continue to be part of the solution to some of these issues and we will keep you informed about our trip.
Written by Caroline Taylor
Research from the Abrinq Foundation 2023 report
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