Work methodology

Five excellent Brazilian teachers and a varying number of interns and volunteers teach about 100 children aged 4 to 14 years in everything they should have learned at school, but what is not or very poorly offered. They teach math, Portugese, economics, history, biology and English. In addition they teach life skills.

Soccer trainer Vinícius, born and raised in Mangueira, teaches soccer twice a week. In addition to technical matters and tactics, he pays a lot of attention to life skills such as discipline, rules and sportsmanship. On the sports field in front of the school, sponsored by Van Oord, sport classes are offered in tennis, beach tennis and volleybal

The teachers pay a lot of attention to social skills and general knowledge, such as hygiene, health, sexuality and abuse of drugs and alcohol. This is necessary because many children in the favela's don’t learn this at home. In addition a psychologist helps traumatized children and -in some cases- their parents.

At noon our professional cook Sonia - a resident from the neighborhood and grandmother of two of our students - serves a warm and healthy lunch to all children of the project, so they don't have to study with an empty stomach. In addition the children are taught to eat fruits and vegetables which aren't served at home.

We pay extra attention to the development of girls, because we believe that girls - the future mothers and educators - can bring about substantial changes to the Brazilian macho society. In monthly 'girls clubs' the female teachers discuss topics, ranging from love and sexuality to the role of women in society.

We offer our students a varied cultural program of trips to museums, theaters and cinemas. As well the students participated in a music project, composing film music in collaboration with the foundation ‘Watch that sound’ from Rotterdam. In addition we organize a yearly end-of-year trip to a waterpark.