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 The idea originated from an article read during the time I was taking an enjoyable free online course called Digital Resources in the Use of Education. While scanning some of the articles, I came across a link in Portuguese, which had been added by the coordinator of the course Liliam Starobinas.
The article stated that in the year 2000, the government of New Delhi, in partnership with an information technology company, conceived a project for street kids using computers having Internet access. The project was developed along the lines of what was termed "minimally invasive education". This article re-entered my thoughts from time to time as I was thinking of doing something similar in the same favelas I had been involved with while doing previous educational projects. However, for the time being, I had set aside my thoughts regarding the article while spending a part of the month of July in a community in southeast Brazil in the mountains. While there, I used to go to public libraries which belonged to the community in my free time. Some of the libraries were small but with wonderful books. It was there that I realized the importance of libraries regardless of size. It wasn't even necessary that the books have been purchased by the library, as I discovered that many of them were donated. I read some books which really touched me profoundly. After returning to Maceió in northeast Brazil, I felt inspired to donate some books of my own. These were mainly ones I hadn't read in years. They had only been taking up space. Prior to my donating them, I had spoken to a community leader in Vale do Reginaldo (Reginaldo Valley) and asked him if he would be interested. He had assured me that he was. I also donated the bookshelf I owned as I was moving to a smaller house and this bookshelf would not fit within my new home. The community leader smiled widely as he informed me that the association would gladly welcome the furniture as they barely had any. The bookshelf, containing the donated books, fit well there. This association specifically deals with those living in the poorest part of Vale do Reginaldo where the crime rate is at the highest. Its location lies at a crossroads which connects to many groves or small favelas in Vale do Reginaldo and the suburb of Jacintinho. Along with the chairs, the bookshelf, with its books and magazines, caught the resident's attention since the association has such few pieces of furniture. It was immediately noticed by those who gathered to receive milk from the government's Zero Hunger Project. While people were waiting their turn, some of them started reading the books and expressed interest in borrowing them. When I heard about this, I felt quite happy. I had no means to engage in the concept of "minimally invasive education" with computers, like in New Delhi. Nevertheless, books could substitute for computers, serving the same purpose within the favela communities. One day, I asked the community leader, along with the other members of the association to let me know what projects would best serve their interests. Believe it or not people mentioned books, magazines, and having a way to interact with something new that previously had been inaccessible in their day to day living. To my surprise the book Cure and Health Through Food was one of the most requested. Cook books were requested mainly by women. Meanwhile, the younger adults were more interested in Brazilian and foreign literature, self-help, psychology, spiritual books, basic math and Brazilian Portuguese grammar books. English easy readers were desired by the few who learned English through the English teaching project. This motivated us to set up a properly organized small reading room; I don't know if I can yet call it a small library, but we are coming to that, mainly because of the continuous interest in the variety of subjects that were mentioned above. A lot of people living outside favelas communities think that they are comprised of only illiterate people. In reality there are those who are. However, there are also a lot of favela residents who are hardworking despite their low income jobs. They make an effort to study at night, even though tired, and take their children to school. There are also different levels of poverty, most visible among the newcomers, who don't know anybody yet, and have just enough land for a small shack. They have come to try life in the city, the majority having left the countryside where they have been expelled by the selfish sugar cane plantation owners. Since there is one crop farming in the poor Northeast, it has left many basically enslaved to those who produce the cane. At night, the humble place where the association is located is quite dangerous. Shots can be heard as it is central to many groves. Approximately one month after the small book donation, when the association building was opened in the morning, it was discovered that some books were stolen by someone who had put their hands through the top window where they could reach part of the bookshelf. When I was told this, I don't know why, but I was not disappointed. In some way, which I don't know how to explain, I was happy, because I intuitively felt that if the stolen books fed the soul of the person who took them, in some way, it might start transforming something within himself and this justified the attempt to set up the small reading room. As Paulo Freire said "Education cannot change the world but can change the people and people can change the world." Anyway the hole in the window was repaired. Other books from the bookshelf will be lent just as soon as the association gets done cataloging the additional ones, which we have started receiving. Setting up a small library in those communities became viable for me on a volunteer basis once my teaching role with the English project in the favelas (1) ended. This happened after the project got organized and put in the hands of the community leaders. It was so motivating to me to see the response to the books I'd brought into the community. Secondly, the course I was taking online, via Cidade do Conhecimento (City of Knowledge) from USP - University of São Paulo, made me become more aware of the viability of social collaborative, collective intelligence, and social constructivism. That made me realize that, despite not having computers in the favela, nor my school, that what I was learning in the virtual world could be brought to the favela communities through establishing the library. Organizing the Library As I said, I learned a lot about how I could make use of information technology to teach in the classroom. However, my reality was very different, even as a teacher navigating my school computer at a speed of 50 Kb, as one Internet connection serves a network of seven computers. The teacher's room only has two computers which are shared by more than twenty teachers. Thus, you can imagine how slow it is. Anyhow this did not leave me unmotivated. I started adapting and that's how things got started. I told all my students that the oral assignment would be completely different this semester if they agreed. The idea was for them to think as successful employees of a company and our school would function as the company. The students from all my classes were divided into groups of four and five, and they had to think of an idea of a social project to benefit a poor needy community and they had to make a presentation to the company (school) or the leadership of their own suburb. From there, the best ideas it would be chosen with the purpose of being collectively applied. I told the students that a "crossed fertilization" of all good ideas would be made available to them so that we would incorporate each student. If everybody had Internet access we would have done this online, but that lack did not stop us. We got a practical idea from a semester 4 student, a Librarian from Federal University of Alagoas, after telling him about the experience I had with Vale do Reginaldo Association. He suggested requesting the donation of books via the University Library authorized by an official document from the Association of Vale do Reginaldo. This was done by the president of the association with our help, along with the aid of a volunteer social worker. More books started to arrive. We did not have anywhere to put them as the association lacked furniture. However, we had the most important thing, the library books. When my school was told about the project, it was agreed that they would sponsor 6 bookshelves of two meters each, plus one fan. They ended up following through with their agreement. Community Takes Over Once the books were there, along with the bookshelves and community interest, we had to empower local volunteers to manage the library. The day of the training for organizing the library was a Saturday morning. A librarian, a social worker named Viviane Cristine Cavalcanti de
Melo, and I were voluntarily on hand to help train the community participants . In the beginning, three young volunteers showed up. We were led by Wálter, the professional librarian. First, we chatted with everybody before starting. Then we had to find a good place for the bookshelves and Wálter positioned them so well that they gave the Association a new look. Next, Wálter started separating the books by subject. We grouped the books according to the themes Wálter used to separate them into, handing them over to the kids to place in the bookshelves. Our intention in doing so was to teach them where each subject belonged as they would be the ones to lend them to the community. After the books were arranged on the shelves, it gave a completely different feel to the association building. In fact, a street cleaner who entered the community center continued staring at them and said, "It is beautiful!" We got the job done except for leaving three boxes of books for the students to separate them by subject themselves as a way of practicing what they had learned. After two weeks, we will meet to check and start cataloguing the books. I told the volunteers from the community the good news. This made them even more excited about being able to help. I told them that we might get a scholarship or two for the volunteers who are going to help in the library but this we would have to confirm with the ex-volunteer from England, who'd previously worked with the English project, as he was the one who had offered the donation. The Story Behind the Donation How a Civil Court Case, Brought on Behalf of a Dog, Caused the English Volunteer to Donate the Money to Our Worthy Cause One Friday morning in August 2006, I met a friend of mine, the ex-volunteer from the Project, who is an English native speaker. He has been living in Brazil for more than 12 years and teaches English in a classy posh English language private school in Maceió, northeast Brazil. He said to me that he knew that I was no longer active in the English language project in the favelas, but asked if I was involved in the favelas in another project. I replied that I was helping to set up a favela library with a library student and social worker, both volunteers, and explained what was happening in detail. He smiled widely, told me he wanted to contribute and asked what could be bought, or done, to further the small library project. I said that I'd accept his help as long as he could donate some time to the project. He agreed. A few years ago, a Rio de Janeiro veterinarian, based in Maceió, had been in charge of an adoption center for dogs. This veterinarian diagnosed his dog with Leishmaniasis and said that the animal needed to be put to sleep. My friend took him at face value and, unfortunately, allowed him to do so. As my friend had four dogs, exams were conducted on the other three. The same veterinarian said that two of the others needed to be euthanized also due to the same problem. However, my friend did not permit this veterinarian to put to sleep the other two . It rang a bell with George when he later heard from his wife that this same veterinarian is a specialist in euthanizing animals. Furthermore, she found out that once, in a condominium in Maceió, he had diagnosed 20 dogs with the same disease and put down all of them. This made George angry and it was then that he decided to sue this veterinarian. As he consulted other veterinarians about his same two dogs, the same type of testing was conducted. These tests were sent out to anonymous laboratories in Maceió and neither this veterinarian nor the dog's owner knew which lab was verifying the results. When they came back negative, it furnished the proof my friend needed to sue the first veterinarian. The case gained a lot of attention and my friend won. Meanwhile, the Carioca veterinarian no longer lived in Maceió. He was living in another northeast Capital. He had been suspended from his job duties. The dog who was put to sleep was a Doberman. George had told us about a time that he had gone for a lengthy walk on the beach. He reached a distant section where there were many people. A group of them suddenly appeared from the vegetation in front of George. They hadn't noticed the dog standing behind him. Just before the people approached further, the dog put itself in the middle of George and the group, and barked fiercely at them, making them run away. This became significant when my friend told me that, in the meantime, he had a dream about the dog. He felt like his dog's spirit was trying to appear to him. In someway, that he doesn't know how to explain, the dog instructed him to go further in the judicial proceeding against the veterinarian. The message in the dream was along the lines that the veterinarian was responsible for killing, push on more, go further. Thus my friend asked his lawyer to ask for financial compensation. George won and was happy because he now had both justice for his dog as well as having made the veterinarian spend money on three air tickets from Natal since he was required to be present during the proceedings. At this time, George said that he could donate 1,100 reais (US$ 465,50) towards the project. This was the money he had won from suing the veterinarian. He said that the case had taken a long time to settle and the money had just come through. He looked at it as blood money. Therefore, he would like to use it towards a worthwhile cause. A Worthwhile Donation That's how we got the scholarship for the volunteers from the community. a table that seats eight in the Association of Vale do Reginaldo, and the bookshelves for starting another small library in the community of Grota do Arroz. George, in accordance with the rest of the group, decided that the best thing to do with the money he donated was to buy a table, the same color as the bookshelves, which seat eight. This way, more people who wanted to use the association library would have a place to sit. On top of the table we would lay out a community newspaper and magazines. Though the table we found is designed to seat eight people, we fit 10 chairs around it. With the rest of the money, we decided to invest in a scholarship for five months at a information technology training school, which was within walking distance from Vale do Reginaldo. The location was important so that the recipient would not have to pay for bus fare. The young adults who volunteered to help at the library's inception did not know about this scholarship. When I told them, at the midway point of setting up the library, their faces changed considerably to reflect their joy. The enrollment took place three days afterwards. An emphasis was put on the importance of computer skills which would be used throughout their lives and for the future of the library. Someday, they might not only have a local library, but one linked with other branches, opening doors for their communities to have computers linked to the Internet. This was also an opportunity to build experience with these computer skills which would be helpful in aiding their own community and getting others involved to help as well. The other part of the US$ 465,50 dollars was invested in the Grota do Arroz Community by using it to purchase a roof fan. This was needed since the heat, where the English project meets, is unbearable for both the teacher and the students. Additionally, it covered five bookshelves bought for the Association of Grota do Arroz. The idea was to finish the job in Reginaldo and then start there. To my surprise, within the first week ex-students from the English teaching project and other people in the community, upon seeing the donations, began a campaign themselves to get used books. They even got a volunteer librarian to help them. Their contribution was great, and we could not have been happier. They even wrote a donation request asking for books. We were so proud of that. After finishing buying the furniture for the Library, roof fans, bookshelves and providing the scholarship for the people in the community, George said that he felt relieved. He had now seen with his own eyes what he was contributing to and had personally met the people he was helping. The Volunteers from the multidisciplinary team who are professionally organizing the libraries, and the residents involved, hope that other communities will open up other possibilities within them. Then we can expand, one step at a time, once people from those same communities have become empowered to do so. After all, this became possible through the seed of inspiration sparked from the article on "minimally invasive education" followed by Wálter's idea of slowly establishing an official library, and social worker, Viviane's, help to focus the group on empowering the people in order to get them and their community involved. We hope that once the communities got a vision of what has been accomplished, they will want to participate themselves. Donations are important, but people definitely must contribute their time to make the project successful. Four people had another good idea. They suggested establishing a way to diagnose a problem within a needy community and resolve to work on it in a way that would facilitate change. One alumni of mine, a lawyer, said that for justice to act, it needs to be provoked. Therefore, I spoke about this problem to many people in the communities in need where there are no birth records because of the lack of funds. The result is that they are left citizens on the margin of society. My alumni student drew up an official document citing two articles from the 1988 Federal Constitution of Brasil. I supplemented it by adding information about the community's problems and the intervention of international organizations, in this case The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and The World Health Organization (WHO). Viviane, in accordance with her professional experience in the area of health, added to the document. She stressed the importance of a birth registry. This relates not only to resolving questions of citizenship, but also that of public health. This had previously been cited with reference to the National Program of Immunization - PNI. In order to receive immunizations, one has to have registered the birth of their child. After revising the official document, it was shown to the leader of the community. Acting on behalf of the association, he will be sending a request to the justices of the Tribunal Court after the elections, which will happen this October 29. The name of the person who represents the judicial institutions has been omitted as this document won't be sent until the election's results are in. It also lacks the authorization of the Clerk of Court who officializes the document under the name of the president of the Judicial Court in the case that he hears the petition of the Community of the Valley of Reginaldo II. Esteemed Sir: _______________________________ President of the Distinguished Court of Justice of the State of Alagoas I make this appeal to your honor, as President of the Community Association representing the residents of Reginaldo II. It is asked that the court provide for the presence of an itinerant judge in our community for the purpose of drawing up basic documents, to which all citizens have a right, such as the Birth Certificate, Federal Identity Card, etc, for people who live in an extreme state of social exclusion without, at most times, the financial means to pay for these services. Therefore, this petition has as its objective the goal of proper citizenship and promotes the dignity to which all humans have a right in accordance with what has previously been set forth in Article 1, sections II and III of the Federal Constitution of 1988. Our community remains a major area of international focus due to the presence of lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis) in the State of Alagoas according to the World Health Organization and the Pan American Organization of Health. These organizations were financing medicine from Switzerland through a contract they entered into with the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL, FUNASA) and the Municipal Secretary of Health of Maceió. I'd like to point out that the presence of an itinerant judge is needed to attend to this and other questions of public health, since there are presently various children who are not being attended to by the National Program of Immunization. In the municipality, they have been denied vaccinations since no Birth Registry exists. I am certain that we can count on the support of the Justice Tribunal to promote fairness for its citizens. I await your contact at number 9103-----(talk with------). Sincerely, President of Vale do Reginaldo Community. (1) English project in the favelas - This project was one I conceived and in which I served as a professor and volunteer coordinator for almost six years. It continues today under community supervision. I left the project after I became aware of the need to delegate responsibility to those the project benefits. I saw that my mission as a professional and citizen, conscious of the inequalities existing within society, was no longer being fulfilled through this project. Currently I continue with other volunteer projects, such as the library, in which I have the aid of a multidisciplinary team. The course website I mention in the first paragraph can be found at www.cidade.usp.br/educar. And the original article that inspired me can be read here: www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_7/warschauer P.S. - Previous information about the Teaching English Project can be read at the following links from Brazzil Magazine. http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/9373/79/ http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/1646/57/ Antônio Ângelo Farias da Silva, lives in Maceió, in the Brazilian Northeast and can be contacted at
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i know ull love it
You are truly a great person who deserves the highest respect.