Good Education for 3,000 Brazilian Kids post Covid

I think we have all known that the return of children to full time schooling after two years without would bring us many challenges in the community we serve where many children had no or very poor access to online learning during the pandemic. The local municipal government, responsable for kindergardens and the first five years of formal education (6 to 10 year olds), did an evaluation of the level of learning of all 31,000 pupils of this age group in the city and has presented the results which are shocking, though not entirely unexpected: 90% of first year students are completely illiterate and inumerate, 78% of year 2s, 48% of year 3s and 31% of year 4s!

It is now clear to all the magnitude of the challenge we face in society as these children will have to progress through the system each year as there are no physical structures available to keep children longer in education. Given the evaluations we have previously done of the project, we know that it contributes very significantly to children's reading and interest in reading and general school engagement and so it has been very satisfying to be back with a group of teenagers delivering the project in 5 schools in our neighbourhood.

Samira, one of the youth leaders of the project says "the resumption of reading activities with children has been a great challenge, since children are coming from 2 years old without effective contact with schools. Children who had contact with reading during the pandemic showed greater ease in recognizing words and even reading, unlike those who had no contact at all, where they have great difficulty in reading and even in recognizing letters and numbers. Seeing the difficulty of many children in reading, the teenagers adapted to a simpler strategy where children work their imagination and which helps them in the literacy process."

Thank you all for supporting our project and if we manage to raise more funding, there are many schools who are in a queue to receive our project.