UNL CEHS Students Support a Brazilian School

UNL CEHS Students Support a Brazilian School And We Need Your Help

The College of Education and Human Sciences (CEHS) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) regularly offers study abroad programs in Salvador, Brazil that focus on children, families, schools, communities, race, language, and culture in this nearly 500-year-old city that hosts the largest population of people of African descent outside Africa. In Salvador, UNL CEHS students visit Escola Aberta do Calabar, interacting with the students and teachers there, learning about the people, pedagogy, and curriculum of this amazing community-based school.

A street view of Escola Aberta.

Escola Aberta do Calabar—the Calabar Open School—was founded in 1982 during a military dictatorship by a group of youth in the Calabar favela within Salvador, Brazil in order to provide an education free of government restrictions for the children of this impoverished neighborhood. Nearly 40 years after its founding, the school has served over 10,000 students, and it still works to provide an education that opens the minds of its students, doing so without government funding.

A view of the neighborhood from the school.

Principal Nilza Santos leads her team of 12 teachers serving 130 students in grades K through 5 while also securing funding to keep the teachers paid, the children fed and educated, and the lights on.

The computers behind the principal no longer work, but they are kept and parts are harvested from them to keep one or two old computers barely functioning.

UNL students always bring gifts for the school, generally small things like markers, pens, pencils, paper, rulers, scissors, and books that the school needs but can’t always afford to purchase.

July 2019: UNL students with the school supplies they brought and gave to Principal Nilza Santos for Escola Aberta.

During our most recent visit in July 2019, when UNL students asked what the school needed besides general operating funds, Principal Nilza Santos prioritized the purchase of a laptop and projector which teachers could use with their students. The school has a dedicated computer lab—with old computers that no longer work and no funds to purchase replacements.

We plan to purchase a laptop computer and a projector for the teachers and students of Escola Aberta do Calabar. For US$2,500, we can provide these teachers and students with a bit of the technology that seems fundamental for a 21st-century education.

You can help. To make a contribution of any amount to our $2,500 goal, please visit our GoFundMe page at https://www.gofundme.com/f/electronics-for-escola-aberta.

And please check back here to see photos of our forthcoming presentation of this laptop and projector to the school.

Appreciate