Emaus City
The City is the largest of the Movimento de Emaus’s four projects. It prevents youth homelessness with its innovative school for children in one of Belém’s poorest favelas. The City also produces food and medicine.
The City school serves some 2000 boys and girls. A contract with the state of Pará provides salaries for the teachers, but the state government has not shown great interest in educational reform, so Emaus has to do most of the work itself. Emaus must find a budget for maintenance, art teachers, and administrators.
The school is based on “participatory learning:” education is made a part of daily life. From first grade on, students do research and write papers, stories, and poems. Education begins with the children’s experience -- for instance, many children know how to manage money (because they work on the street, because they go to the store for their parents), so mathematics begins there. Working children get a scholarship to permit them to study full time and stop working.
The City also has an excellent vocational education program.
Because the City has quite a bit of land, there is space for a garden of amazonian medicinal plants. The City collaborates with the Belém Health Department to market these medicines. Emaus hopes that the plants will become an important source of income within several years.
Cidade de Emaus
Tv Padre Eutíquio 2742
Condor, Belém, PA 66045 110
Brasil
91 272 5896 o 272 2449
Contacto: Marisa Pinheiro, emaus@interconect.com.br
