The sun was trying to break through large grey clouds. Anette, my colleague, and I made our way cautiously over the cracked and broken concrete walk, up the stairway with its graffiti covered walls and broken tiles, onto a large, covered balcony with clothes hanging out to dry.
Here we were in Sao Paulo on a week long Quest with twenty teachers from the United Kingdom to learn about education in a globalizing world. As in so many other countries, education does not only occur in the classroom. In fact, the most impactful learning often happens outside the classroom.
We were with a translator and two educators from Instituto Rukha, a dynamic non-governmental organization, whose mission is to network people and organizations from all sectors of society on behalf of changing the social realities of the poorest of those sectors. They do it with a perspective that focuses on the family as the source of greatest need, and also greatest possibility for helping children break out of the cycle of poverty.
We came to visit Sandra and her children, to see what effect their involvement in the Project Virada from Instituto Rukha was having.
While the sun was struggling to shine on the outside, inside her home, Sandra’s enormously bright smile lit up the room. With her daughter hanging close to her, Sandra welcomed us with big hugs and kisses, and pulled up three attractive, green and white chairs for us to sit on in her tiny kitchen, the first room of her apartment. “Come in, come in,” she urged in her warm Portuguese. “Sit down, sit down.”
Through our translator, Sandra shared bits of her story—married twice, in a good marriage now though her husband had to commute to another town for work and was often gone, four children, a three room apartment, going back to school to get more education, having to overcome discrimination from local merchants and the police.
She invited us to see the other two rooms. In the middle room, a young daughter slept on the bottom bunk bed, and in the next room, a younger son slept as well. Though the rooms had no windows, the air moist, still and stuffy, and the walls showing the formation of mould, she made it clear that this was progress for her.
Proudly, she was pointing to the top mattress on the bunk bed, three inches of thick foam. Our translator shared her enthusiasm and translated directly, “I’ve just bought these two mattresses. Now my children have a bed to sleep on.” Anette and I felt the pride here, but didn’t grasp the full meaning.
Our translator went on to interpret as well as translate. “Since Sandra has been in the programme, she has learned how to think about money in a different way. Normally, when she got money, she would spend it immediately. We say, ‘it would burn a hole in her pocket.’ But with the educators from Project Virada working with her and her family, she realizes that she can use some of the money to buy things such as the mattresses that will last longer than today. She is very proud that her children have a mattress to sleep on, as you can see. She’s learning to save money. She’s also become aware that she can use some of her money to help her with her education which will have long term benefits for her. Prior to being in the programme, she would not have thought about the long term. It would be more like thinking of only today.”
Later we were walking in an even poorer neighbourhood, one where there were very few families in the programme, and where the day to day life appeared even tougher. Our translator said, “When families enter the programme, they usually have no idea of money. Through the programme, they actually get the idea of money, along with a number of other ideas such as education, which they have had no exposure to at all. The way of thinking they learn is foreign to them, and it takes time for them to grasp it. But, as they do grasp it, their lives begin to change.”
I remember vividly where I was when I heard this because of the impact it had on me. I was walking up the narrow path, pink painted concrete walls on one side, a broken water line spewing forth its aerated foam creating a muddy stream down the path, crumbling walls on the other side, criss-crossing electrical lines above our heads sucking power from the public power lines.
It was not so much the poverty and decay which brought me up short. I have seen such things many times before. It was rather the impact of my new awareness. Many, if not all of Sandra’s neighbours living in this favela, do not have the “idea” of money. They know money is important to pay for a place to live, alcohol to drink, food to eat, clothes to wear. They know without it, they could not do things that are required for survival.
They do not, however, know how to think about money in a way that would change their lives. They do not understand that by “saving” their money, they could buy mattresses for their children which would make their children’s lives better. They do not consider that by “investing” their money in education now, they could have a better life later. Project Virada, and others like it, are changing that reality for many families.
They are teaching simple ideas which in these marginalized areas of society have profound effects. Sandra’s life, and her family’s lives, are demonstrably changed by the support they are getting. This education, which takes simple ideas and helps families to implement them, is education for transformation—first transformation of the individual, then their family, and then, in some measure, their community.
Standing over that muddy stream of a pathway and next to the partially painted pink wall, the “aha” hit me, “These people lack many things, but one of their most important lacks is the lack of “ideas” that will transform their lives.”
It was not lost on me that I was in the midst of one of those moments myself. Ideas that I had taken for granted, having learned them from my family and the culture, were not obvious to others. The families in these favelas had to be taught and had to learn these “ideas” in order to have an effect. Here in Sao Paulo at Project Virada, they are doing just that.