some words for teachers and users

Content l Language l Communication l Lessons l Origin of the idea l Sponsors

This newsletter is meant for all people who want to know more about Brazil and its children. It will be published twice every month for a period of one year and can either be subscribed or read in the website.
Marco Aurelio Pinna and Nina Domingues, a journalist and a teacher working for MUTIRUM – an association which takes care of social projects –, are going to write on Brazil, some of its children and stories about them. Marco and Nina live in Rio de Janeiro and in Resende, a town nearby.
The introduction of this newsletter is on experimental basis. The use of the internet and newsletters is to create new perspectives for one of the countries far away from Europe and other continents. We want to stimulate the phantasy, rethinking, communicating, writing and discussing issues of common interest.
This project is the creation of an association called "Partnerschaft Mirantao / Mantiqueira" and is being sponsored by the Protestant Church in Germany and an environmental lottery in Lower Saxony, a federal state in Germany.

Content

• We want to furnish all interested persons with information about current events in Brazil. We want to report on sozial projects, where people care for others . These projects are situated between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, in cities and rural areas.
• We want to report on daily activities of kids and teens and their interests, young people, the poor as well as the rich.
• We want to introduce to them interesting websites in the internet.
• We want to promote interest in the questions of "development". There will be the chance to communicate with people working on the projects and with the authors of the newsletters. Those wishing to support the projects by sending signals will be offered opportunities to do so. back
  

Language:

These newsletters are written for kids between 10 - 16, but not exclusively. They are written in English, because
- the authors are speaking English
- English is widely spoken
- Many kids learn English and sometimes need an idea to pu it into practice.
But: These newsletters are not written by English teachers. Before using them please check if the recepients can read and understand it. In case of serious problems please try to translate and use them in YOUR language as a source of information about Brazil.

Some of the letters will also be written in German or Portuguese, maybe you can use these languages as well. back

Communication:

We love to receive questions, ideas, comments, additional information whatsoever. Please write to Marco in English or Portuguese, and Harald in English or German. We´ll try to answer any contact, but until now we have no idea how many letters we will receive and how many time we need to answer them. Please be patient with us. We guarantee a fast forwarding and a short feedback as a minimum. back

Lessons

The best way to teach about Brazil is by integrating information about a country like Brazil into the school program as well as school curriculum for a longer period of time. This is a difficult approach because there is a huge amount of job to be done by the individual teachers. Secondly there is a lack of information about these countries and regions. Thirdly the integration of informations about third world countries leading to its perspectives is unusual and when this is to be done then it`ll need a special effort, motivation, even courage and individual initiative.
We try as much as possible to avoid topics that confirm clichés. Our newspapers are full of news about poverty, criminality, catastrophes happening in the South. We want to add more sensitive aspects in order to explain the situations in which children in Brazil are living vividly. People should be made conscience that life has more than only problems, life can have very beautiful aspects even in a favela, like playing football, falling in love, singing, dancing, enjoying a beautiful evening. And these aspects of life are very enlightning and encouraging. It has to be given a support and understood by the rich countries. The understanding of these problems will give us the chance to respect the lifestyle of those living in the poor environment.
On the other hand it is an enrichment for people in the rich countries. This will lead us to streamline our politics and to find out where the need for change would be necessary. Brazil is a wonderful country nevertheless the situations of a part of the population are quite discouraging. It is difficult to comprehense why the situations in Brazil are like they are.
But we think there are some good reasons to teach about Brazil:
- Brazil has a positive image in most of the countries abroad: soccer, samba, carneval, beach, nature …
- Brazil is a dynamic country.
- Brazil is a country with social problems but without racism: different cultures and people live together peacefully.
- Brazilians are unknown to us. As a result of that we don`t have neither negative nor positive experience with them.
- Brazil is an important economic partner for a lot of countries.
- Brazilians are interested in Europe.
- Thousands of groups and organizations in Europe support projects in Brazil.
- Samba and Capoeira-culture are very popular abroad.
- Sometimes Brazilians need support from outside because politically there is still political violation of human rights in the country.

We think a partnership between schools and projects would be a marvellous thing. Therefore we are working on a better structure to support partnerships. back

Origin of the idea

The origin of the idea was in Germany. A school and an association created that idea of a newsletter. Both are having a strong partnership to partners in the Mantiqueira region. But we realized there is the need to have a direct information.

You can read more about that in the Internet: http://www.schoolalliance21.g12.br

For more about the background of MUTIRUM open: http://www. mutirum.org.br back

Sponsors:

- EED (Church Development Service - an Association of the Protestant Churches in Germany), at http://www.eed.de, and ABP (Committee for Development Education and Publications) have the aim of giving financial support and other kind of help to education and media work in Germany on matters relating to international justice.

- "Bingo-Lotto", a lottery that supports projects between North and South and environmental projects in Lower Saxony (Germany) back

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