Worldfund and Better World Books Trip to Brazil
August 2008
In early August, Worldfund led a group of Better World Books employees, including one of the company's co-founders, on a trip to Brazil. The group visited Worldfund's partner schools and educational projects in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Maceió.
In São Paulo, we visited the Reading Circles program, where we sat in on one of the program's weekly Peer Leader sessions. The students, who then go back and lead the Reading Circles in high schools in their own communities on the periphery of São Paulo, were discussing themes from books they have recently read with the group, including Dostoevskys' The Brothers Karamazov and Williams Saroyan's The Human Comedy. Everyone, both peer leaders and the Better World Books team members, told the group what their favorite book was and why.
The next day, the Better World Books group visited a public high school in São Bernardo, on the outskirts of São Paulo. We met with the school administrator, who described for us some of the difficulties she encounters running the school. We also got to meet with and talk with a group of kids who participate in Reading Circles, some of whom are very new to the program.
We also traveled to Santa Julia, also in Greater São Paulo, to see the Mão Amiga school there. We visited their library, facilities, and classrooms, as well as the medical clinic and women's center which are located within the same complex. We visited an English class of the younger children, who sung some songs in English for us.
In Rio de Janeiro, we visited the program Redes da Maré, located in the favela of Maré. One of the programs Redes runs includes intensive review sessions for students from the favela studying to take the vestibular, the Brazilian college entrance examination. Normally, students from impoverished backgrounds with a public school elementary and secondary education cannot pass the vestibular, and therefore cannot gain entry into the free and high-quality Brazilian public universities. We met a number of adults, one of whom had gone through the program when she was in her 30s, who had passed the vestibular and are currently attending public university thanks to Redes da Maré.
In Maceió, we spent the entire day at the Starfish school (Escola Estrela do Mar). We visited classrooms, ate lunch with the kids, and sat in on a father's day celebration. We also helped build removable shelves for the Starfish library. The materials for these shelves were purchased by Better World Books. Below is a picture of the nearly completed shelves.
