Young Nayane Silva (photo) was a first-year high school student when she became pregnant with her daughter, aged 18. “I studied until I was six months pregnant, my belly was growing, there was no way to go up a ramp that gave access to the school, so I stopped studying”, says she, who spent four years out of school, until she found out about the Virando o Jogo project in Fortaleza. A student in the fifth edition of the project, the young mother is taking a salting machine course. “I felt very welcome and I enjoyed the classes with the psychologists more and more, I started to get out of the sedentary lifestyle, creating new habits and knowledge. Today I’m a salt cook, I love cooking. The project has helped me a lot, both psychologically and physically, with the sports offered I have gotten out of obesity and a sedentary lifestyle, now I am passionate about sports and I am healthy”, says Nayane, 23 years old. At the moment, she is without a job. “It is very difficult, opportunities are missing!”. But, now reinserted in the Youth and Adult Education Center (Ceja), where she studies the disciplines of the three years of high school, she wants to apply for the Municipal Guard of Fortaleza. “I’m going to prepare for the next contest, I didn’t like to study and today I enjoy learning. I’m going to study and I’m not going to stop until it’s time for approval.” The young Carlos Daniel Carneiro de Sousa is Nayane’s colleague in the salt shaker course. He finished high school and is currently out of work, but the project motivates him. “My life was a little meaningless, it was just going on. I had stopped in 2020 in the 1th year of high school and it was during the pandemic period, I was very uninterested in life. But, the experience at Virando o Jogo has been one of learning and self-knowledge, a great mix. Life is still a little turbulent, but I feel much better, compared to the beginning of the project I have changed a lot.” At 22, he dreams of setting up his own business. “I want to have a restaurant or something related to gastronomy”. He is currently studying on his own at home to take the National High School Examination (Enem). “My current plans are to work in a kitchen and acquire knowledge, later going to college and opening my own business in a few years.” Mateus Santos da Silva was a student of the first edition. He took an administrative assistant course and, during editing, he was reinserted in the blended EJA and passed the selection of young apprentice at Banco do Nordeste. But before the project, it wasn’t like that. Mateus Santos was hired at the bank after a year and a half as a young apprentice – Personal archive/Disclosure “I didn’t work, I didn’t study and I stayed at home, I dropped out of school because I found a job, then I didn’t study and I didn’t have a job”. But the project transformed his life. “I managed to join Ceja to finish my studies, I was entitled to several courses and to the allowance, which I gave to help at home. It was a very good experience, the teachers are great!” Mateus was hired at the bank after a year and a half as a young apprentice and is still studying at two colleges at the same time. “I’m in the second semester of the faculty of administration and managerial processes as well.” At age 22, he also wants to take part in a public tender. “My dream is to finish both colleges, get a good job and I still intend to pass the public tender and I will pass!”. Nayane and Carlos are in the Virando o Jogo project, which in Fortaleza and Sobral reached 5,180 young people from Ceará who neither study nor work, or, like young Mateus, did not study and did not work and had their lives transformed. The initiative of the government of the state of Ceará involves bodies in the areas of education, public security, the Research Support Foundation, in addition to the National Commercial Learning Service (Senac). The story of these and other young people was recorded in the report-book Aqui Contains Sonhos: Narratives around the Turning the Game Project. The project provides free access to vocational courses certified by Senac and, at the same time, promotes school reintegration actions for those who interrupted their studies and are interested in going back to school, leading each young participant who dropped out to regular education. When wearing the Virando o Jogo shirt, the turnaround “button” is activated in different phases: throughout the training process, participants in the Virando o Jogo project undergo citizenship training, professional qualification, community actions and socio-cultural activities, in addition to acquiring notions of entrepreneurship and financial management. They also have psychosocial care and family support, when necessary, as well as cost allowance, transportation vouchers, educational material, uniform, snacks and other social benefits. Those who advanced in all the “houses” of the Turning the Game project leave with a technical-professional certificate signed by Senac, the prospect of being referred to internships or jobs, small businesses started or in planning and a fuller curriculum, which results in more solid chances to enter the job market. With resources from the Ceará State Violence Prevention and Reduction Program (PReVio), the state government says that in 2023 the project will reach three municipalities in Ceará: Caucaia, Maracanaú and Maranguape. In 2024, Itapipoca, Quixadá, Iguatu, Crato and Juazeiro do Norte will be added. With this, the estimate is to reach the milestone of 20,000 adolescents and young people served throughout the state. Evaluation The Turning the Game project initiative led a group of researchers from the Federal University of Ceará and the University of Fortaleza (Unifor) to analyze it, as well as the situation of young people who are out of school and work. In the view of researcher Gustavo Raposo, it is first necessary to think about the meaning of the term neither-nor. “Neither studying nor working, this idea is that this young person is in a very vulnerable situation, because he should be studying and he is not. By not studying, it harms his professional future, his future income and also not working makes him even more vulnerable, exposed to recruitment for illicit activities and this ends up becoming a double risk effect. And there is a very large contingent of young people who are in this situation”, laments the researcher, who works with human rights and empirical research. The researcher explains that it is necessary to analyze what makes this young person stay out of school. “There are many issues related to urban violence, displacement, the effect of criminal organizations’ control over territories, an infinity of possibilities and aspects that can be addressed to think about why this young person is not in school.” The school environment also influences this abandonment. “Another important aspect concerns the school itself: why can’t you keep this young person inside the school? Could it be that the school is bad, is there violence within that school, is it not offering adequate training for this young person, that makes him feel stimulated and attracted to stay in the school? The dynamics also related to the school that has to be observed.” As for the professional dimension, the researcher stresses that young people can occasionally work, albeit precariously. “He is doing odd jobs, moving around, sometimes moving between licit activities, such as delivery, and illicit activities, doing small jobs associated with the criminal world, there is a situation that this young man who we say does not work, in fact he is doing all he can to survive, even if he does not have a permanent fixed activity.” For Raposo, it is necessary to reflect that this young man is super vulnerable in all aspects. “This situation destroys a good part of the prospects for the future that he has and creates a situation of vulnerability that can generate associated risks, including security and criminal activities.” The researcher argues that this young person needs to be taken care of. “It needs to be protected, there needs to be investments, programs that bring this young person back to school and, at the same time, work on his professional insertion or reintegration. The nem-nem has to be accepted because he is a young man who has enormous potential, they are creative, they have projects, dreams, innovative ideas, but they are, to a great extent, without the ability to see in that horizon that he lives, to see what he can do to get out of that.” Therefore, the projects can change the situation, analyzes Raposo. “The projects show options, paths, open a door, induce this inertial movement that ends up causing him to be swallowed up by this vulnerable situation in which he lives.” The researcher alerts, however, to the negative view of these young people. “You have to be very careful with the idea of the young problem. There are many people who say: ‘Let’s invest so they don’t become ‘thieves’. Beware of this approach. The approach of reception, support, understanding of the problems they are experiencing, the opportunity and the potential that this young person has, if it is well worked, it is adequate, it is the perspective that we prefer to act.” He observes that young people’s lack of perspective is not just a Brazilian problem either. “It is very present in other countries, this lack of opportunities, of perspectives, the labor market that cannot absorb these young people, especially young black people, who come from minority groups abroad, mainly affecting children of immigrants, so it is not a problem only in Brazil. But in Brazil it is a problem of alarming size.”
Agência Brasil
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