Citizenship education
Learning at school and in society

AXE PROJECT

Bahia, BRAZIL

The Axe Project aims at contributing to the improvement of the situation of the people living in a state of extreme poverty, privileging the most vulnerable sectors: childhood and youth. The Program promotes the defense of the rights of adolescents and excluded children, by means of activities at the educational and social level. Its pedagogical proposal is based upon the concept of the learner as a subject of desire, knowledge and rights. It also goes in the direction of integrating young people to society, acknowledging and being at the same time participants of its construction. Thus, the program motivates "street" children and teenagers to abandon high-risk environments (delinquency, drug-addiction and prostitution) and have access to the educational process, under the motto "the best education for the poorest". For the Candomblé (religion of African origin that arrived in Brazil with the slaves), Axe is the principle, the strength or the energy which asserts that everything in the universe has the chance of "becoming something".

The Projeto Axe NGO (Axe Project Center, for the defense and protection of children and adolescents) develops the program through political, pedagogical and social actions covering different areas. In the street education, a process is visualized for the conquest of citizenship, starting from the existing link between educator and youths, which begins with the very work of daily life and children's environment, until the consolidation of their own life project. Through the Open Air School (pedagogical activities carried out on the streets), new transition spaces are created between the school and the street. As a kind of methodological support, an "axebuzu" adapted vehicle is used for the artistic and cultural activities (library, video-room, debates and exhibits). In the Educational Companies, the work is done for the citizenship and the working life, promoting awareness and the existence of both rights and duties, and also the knowledge of the different forms of social organization and the market laws. The House of Culture provides access to the art of dancing as an educational activity, a professional one or a future employment. There are also different activities concerning the defense of rights, health education and training for technicians and educators. Conditions are also created to guarantee children's entrance to and permanence in schools.

In Bahia, whereby there is extreme poverty, through which the most unfavored sectors of the society are passing, means the deprivation of their rights and lack of people's protection. Children and teenagers are the most vulnerable people in this situation, since they are deprived of the possibility of developing their human, biological, psychological, social and spiritual potentials. Many children and young people remain outside their families, their communities and schools, being forced to develop economic activities to survive. In this context, the project proposes to cover these children's major issues by acting against inequality and exclusion and in favor of the fundamental right to a dignified kind of life.

Mr. Cesare de Florio
La Roca Axe Project President
161 Estados Unidos Ave. Suerdiek Bldg., 9th and 10th floors
Comércio Salvador - Bahia- Brazil.
CEP: 40010-020
Tel.: (0 71) 242-5815/ 242-5876
Fax: (0 71) 241-3110
E-mail: projetoaxe@uol.com.br

Institutional Partners
UNICEF, WLO, Amnesty International, The European Union, Federal, State and Municipal Government Organs (Brazil) and several NGO s.
Financial Partners
Inter American Development Bank (BID), Bank Boston Foundation, Ayrton Sena Institute and local and national authorities.

1990, Beginning of activities. 1994, First "Street Educators" Seminar.
1997, Workshop on the Analysis-Systematization of the Theoretical and Practical Pedagogical Proposal of the Axe Project.

First 1997 "Human Rights" Award in the category "Non Governmental Organizations", granted by the Trial Committee. This committee is composed by some of the highest Brazilian authorities in the area of human rights.