Brena Carvalho was a student of the preparatory course for the entrance exam of the Cultural Education and Popular Education Project (Pecep) in 2017. The following year, after moving to the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj), she returned to the project, already as a volunteer . Today, newly graduated in pedagogy, he recognizes the transforming role of Pecep. “It was very essential for me. If I hadn’t gotten in, I would have had a very different perspective on college, on the world view,” she says. A similar trajectory has been followed by Thiago Lins. A resident of Rio de Janeiro, he has his bags ready for João Pessoa. In July, he starts his letters course classes at the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB). To pass, he studied at UniFavela’s preparatory course. Like Brenda, he is grateful for the experience and also decided to contribute to the project as a volunteer: he is now part of the pedagogical group and has been working to answer students’ questions. “No matter how difficult public education is, let them always keep in mind that it is a step forward in their lives. It’s a new experience they get; it is an opportunity for greater knowledge, to meet new places, new people, without forgetting where they came from”, said Lins to Agência Brasil. Pecep and Unifavela are currently consolidated non-governmental organizations in the Rio de Janeiro capital. Pecep emerged in 2001 after the remarkable hijacking of bus 174 in 2000, in which passengers were held hostage by Sandro do Nascimento for nearly five hours. A documentary by director José Padilha portrayed the case, associating the kidnapper’s criminal personality with his childhood experiences and the lack of opportunities in life. At the time, students who used to use bus 174 as a means of transport to get to Escola Parque, located in the Gávea neighborhood and close to Rocinha, decided to start a project that could contribute to changing the reality of the community around them. This is how Pecep came about, a community pre-university course that prepares students who have concluded or are in their final year of high school at a cost of R$40 per month, material included. The project develops its activities for residents of low-income communities in the south of Rio de Janeiro, including Rocinha. Volunteer teachers are students and alumni of Escola Parque, which lends its space to the initiative. The course opens 70 vacancies annually. Over the past seven years, Pecep has served more than 450 students. Among students who stay in the pre-university entrance exam for three years, the approval rate reaches 100% and, for two years, 89%. As soon as she finished high school, Brena Carvalho tried the National Secondary School (Enem) but did not have good grades to enter higher education and decided to wait another year. Encouraged by her family, she decided to enroll in the Pecep course, which could be reconciled with working at a nursery in Rocinha, where she lives with her parents. “It was very tiring. It wasn’t easy because of work and life’s challenges. But Pecep taught me a lot. It was where I created a lot of critical and political awareness. I saw that I could express my opinions without fear. I felt encouraged. I am very grateful to Pecep, which is why I returned later as a volunteer. It is a very welcoming environment and, in a way, it makes everything lighter, because the pre-university entrance exam environment is usually very heavy. Pecep made everything look easier.” Unifavela appears in 2018 in Complexo da Maré, in the north zone of Rio de Janeiro, in an improvised way. A literature student and two history students began to teach ten young people on the roof of one of these students’ residence. All of them were approved at public universities, boosting the project. Last year, the non-governmental organization (NGO) received the Yes to Racial Equality 2022 award, organized by the Brazilian Institute of Identities (ID_BR). In addition to facilitating access for young people to universities, the goal is also to encourage adults in the region to enroll in higher education. In the course, young people and adults acquire knowledge through an interactive and free action. Vacancies are offered for 39 students. In 2022, there were 11 regular students throughout the year and nine entered the university by March 2023, which means almost 100% approval. In her master’s thesis defended last year at the Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp), researcher Carolina Campagni studied popular preparatory courses and noted that they encompass issues that go beyond university entrance, acting as an emancipatory space that has the power to expand World vision. They are also spaces of affection and identification of their participants, which could explain why many students return later as volunteers. According to Carolina Campagni, popular prep courses began to emerge with greater intensity at the end of the 20th century as a way of confronting social inequalities. It was a response to the lack of policies that guarantee equal rights in access to higher education for the most vulnerable and marginalized sections of the population. “This happened along with the population uprising for affirmative action for the black population, both led by social movements”, she writes in her research. When analyzing the experience of the TRIU Popular Course, in Campinas, Carolina pointed out that the pedagogy of affection and the embracement practiced “are fundamental for effective learning of the contents, triggering the entry of its students in higher education institutions”. Despite this, she points out that these projects alone are not enough to remedy the gaps caused by social injustices, since there are numerous economic, social, cultural, structural issues with which they are not capable of dealing. “Some precede and others follow the entry of students in the preparatory courses”, she observes. Support Popular courses offer free or affordable classes for low-income students. Therefore, they often need to establish partnerships to develop and expand their activities, being able to serve a greater number of students. One of the partnerships signed by Pecep and Unifavela was with the Phi Institute, an NGO that works by creating bridges between individual or business donors and projects considered investments that provide social return and make it possible to measure results. The two courses receive support through human resources, food, materials and equipment. The partnership is taking place for the second consecutive year. According to Instituto Phi’s project analyst, Matias Hernandez, the results of the two courses draw attention, with high approval rates. According to him, Unifavela has already directly impacted the lives of more than 100 students over the last four years. “Whenever donors want to continue supporting education causes, we can continue,” he said. The Phi Institute collects data on projects that meet the demands that come from donors. According to Hernandez, a mapping with the pre-university entrance examination at Pecep showed that the preferred course by students at Enem was pedagogy. Also taking Unifavela into account, students from both projects also opted for law, nursing, administration, mathematics, economics and computer sciences, physics, architecture, electrical and civil engineering, music, physical education, letters, public health, nutrition and cultural production. One of the challenges faced by popular courses when establishing partnerships involves maintaining their management autonomy. Researcher Felipe Pinto Simão, who also studied the popular courses in a dissertation at Unesp completed in 2020, drew attention to cases in which private companies finance didactic materials that perpetuate a meritocratic vision based on a teaching that values only the memorization and repetition of contents. He questions the ability to offer critical training based on these handouts. “Although the research does not provide enough data to understand the interests of these private companies that finance the didactic material in the popular courses, the role of the latter is questioned here – which ‘depend’ on a booklet system – as spaces of (trans) formation social,” he wrote.
Agência Brasil
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