Rodolfo is the youngest of five brothers who live with his father, João Rodrigues de Oliveira, in the Dom Recanto Feliz community, in the Stiep neighborhood, in Salvador - Bahia. Member of a family of waiters, he hopes to pursue the same profession in the future. Today, at the age of thirteen, he studies, works selling products for cars and attends classes at the NGO Bola Dentro, located in the Club of the Copene Employees Association (AECO), close to his house.
Rodolfo is part of a group of 30 students that Fluxo sponsors at Instituto Bola Dentro, a non-governmental, non-profit organization that teaches citizenship lessons to teenagers aged 12 to 16 years. Support is not just financial. Since the month of May, Fluxo has followed the work of professionals and the involvement of students with the project, in an attempt to be close to community actions and ensure that efforts add up to good results.
The concern with social responsibility and identification with the philosophy proposed by Bola Dentro were the factors that motivated Fluxo to collaborate with the project.
The NGO works with teenagers from needy communities in Salvador. The aim of the project is to form critical awareness, citizenship and cultural development of young people, making them agents of multipliers of these messages for the entire community. Citizenship lessons are conveyed through educational and cultural activities combined with sports practices. The project offers soccer classes, citizenship training and cultural activities.
Forming citizens through sport
Football classes are not intended to train sports professionals. Bola Dentro uses football as a stimulus to keep students interested, but also as a pedagogical practice to develop group relationships, discipline, a spirit of collaboration and teamwork. Time on the lawn is shared with the classroom. On two days a week, students attend sports training and, once a week, attend citizenship education classes, in which group dynamics are held, addressing topics such as sexuality, violence and drug use. The project brings up educational discussions for peace, equality, environmental preservation and citizenship, providing information on the status of children and adolescents and bringing notions about the world of work. "Here, we learn not to be violent," says Rodolfo.
Cultural activities take place once a month in the form of visits to cinemas, theaters, museums, libraries and tourist attractions in the city. The project also provides for the introduction of teenagers to basic computer knowledge.
The activities proposed by the NGO are complementary to formal education, therefore, it is required that students be enrolled in school and attend Bola Dentro in shifts opposite to classes. The psychologist and coordinator of the NGO, Renato Paes de Andrade, says that "the project deals with themes that are not addressed in traditional schools, meeting the needs that formal education leaves out." streets and avoid involvement with marginality.
The project is chaired by Fernando Paes de Andrade, former superintendent director of Copene, and supported by Unicef and the Braskem Employees Association (AECO).