Ruas e Praças (Streets and Plazas)
Ruas e Praças is among the best street education programs anywhere in Latin America. Along with Pé no Chão and the MNMMR-PE, Ruas e Praças has made Recife into a international model for street education.
Ruas e Praças began in 1987, when the city of Recife funded an alternative project for street children, attempting to provide new options for street vendors and beggars. The city hired a group of young educators who went onto the street and developed a strong connection with the children. Unfortunately, the city ended funding for the project, and the educators no longer had an institution or a salary.
Even so, the young educators had become committed to helping street children, so they went on without funding. They went into parks with educational games like puzzles and memory games, turning the street into a “pedagogical space.” These educators had grown up in the same favelas where the street children came from, so everyone could understand each others. Unfortunately, this background also meant that the educators had no formal training in education -- they didn’t know how to teach reading or math. There was also a huge economic problem, because the educators were working long hours without pay.
In 1989, with the help of a German foundation, Ruas e Praças was able to begin to pay stipends to the educators; this money also bought real training in literacy, math, and children’s rights. Educators also learned about Brasilian economics and politics, and the structural causes that lead to youth homelessness.
In the early 1990s, Ruas e Praças developed an institutional philosophy that has been essential for its success: the program insists that it is only a medium, and that the good of the children is always more important than the good of the program. With this attitude, the children have come to trust Ruas e Praças.
One can see the success of the program when first coming in the door. Many of the educators had been street children; they have gone through the program, returned to their families, and then gone on to the university. The understand the street, but they also have a professional education, allowing them to provide an exceptional education. Equally impressive is a trip through the streets with an educator, because dozens of young men come by to tell news of their lives: that they are now married, that they are in college, or that they are now working in a store.
Ruas e Praças boasts a democratic and horizontal administrative structure. There are 13 educators and one administrator, but there are no fixed duties, and all of the educators go on the street every day.
The pedagogical method, formalized in the book No Meio da Rua (“In the middle of the street”), depends on a three step education:
- Learning to do
- Do with the child
- Allow the other to do
All of Ruas e Praças efforts are directed toward the children’s autonomy. In the street, education looks rather like preschool, with board games, chess, checkers, puzzles, etc. All of the games have educational goals (math, spatial relations, dexterity), but they are also fun. These games work for children of all ages, and teenagers play the games with small children.
After several years of work on the street, Ruas e Praças realized that it also needed to work with families, and today the program is very proud of its community outreach work. Educators have found that it is much easier for a child to leave the street when s/he has family support, and that even children who say that they don’t care about families really want to be with their parents and siblings.
The LAR and the municipal program for street children give food to families of street children, so parents always ask Ruas e Praças educators what they’ll get for participating. Families are unhappy that they will get nothing, but they understand that their relationship with Ruas e Praças will be honest, based on respect instead of charity. Just like their children, families participate because they want to, not because they will get something out of it.
According to Ruas e Praças, its success with families depends on finding concrete solutions to basic problems. For example, in one neighborhood several mothers were concerned about school attendance, so Ruas e Praças decided to run a campaign. They called a meeting of mothers interested in schools -- only four came, but they had a great time, because the educators took them to the beach, where they enjoyed the ocean while they talked about schools and their children.
The mothers who had attended the first meeting told their friends, so the next meeting was packed. This time, the educators taught the mothers how to do each others hair and how to give massages; they they played music and talked about the culture of Recife. The educators saw that all of these mothers insisted that “It’s not my fault!”, evidence that they really did think themselves guilty (“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” as Shakespeare said). They expected to be criticized, but when the educators didn’t do anything like this, they began to think about solutions.
At the end of the mothers’ meetings, educators asked the women about education: what should a school be? What is it like today? The mothers talked about their experience in school and began to empathize with their children’s experience. Sometimes they talked about the world today: had they been born in the 1990s, how would they lives have been? Some realized that they might have ended up on the street.
During these classes, educators re-introduced street children to their mothers, and some children returned to live with their families -- or at least to sleep at home from time to time. When the school year began, Ruas e Praças campaigned to get these children back into school -- and after 18 months of work, all of the ex-street children were enrolled in school.
Ruas y Praças has always had a close relationship with the MNMMR, and today it sponsors three of the Movement’s local groups. The first group is one of children who live on the street -- they learn about politics and economics, then organize to defend their rights. The second group is ex-street children who do artwork with a political message. The third local group is in the countryside, where children who live close to Ruas e Praças’ retreat learn about the city and teach their peers about homelessness and poverty.
The “retreat” is not a shelter, but a place to rest from the stress of homelessness. Several years ago, children asked for a place where they could escape from time to time, so the retreat is a place where small groups of street children can go to live without drugs or begging. During these retreats, educators help the children reflect on their lives and find new options.
Ruas e Praças supports volunteers very well. They have found jobs for everyone; even people who don’t speak Portuguese can play chess or checkers with children on the street. The program has also sponsored several researchers who have developed important work on youth homelessness.
Grupo Ruas e Praças
Rua Capitão Lima 20
Santo Amaro, Recife, PE 50040 080
81 3231 4388 o 3221 6476
Contacto: Edson de Oliveira, gruporuasepracas@bol.com.br
www.ruasepracas.org
