Fotos: Archivo CLADE

Students from Sao Paulo discuss the education they need for the world they want

November 4, 2019

Por: Samuel Grillo

Activity with secondary students took place as part of the campaign #TheEducationWeNeed for the world we want

initiative “The education we need for the world we want”, CLADE was last Thursday, Oct. 31, at the Public School Professora Maria Augusta Corrêa, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This public education center is one of the most diversified in the city, with a high percentage of migrant students, especially from Bolivia and Haiti.

In the morning, artist Arthur Moryiama, who created the initiative’s visual identity, reproduced its design at the front door of the school. Then, secondary students from this education center participated in a roundtable, in which they shared their expectations and challenges in regards to their right to education. Among their concerns, they stressed social inequality and its impact on education, with the richest attending private schools where quality of education is different from the quality of education in the public system.

They also underlined the current precarization of the country’s labor market, a situation that does not encourage people to keep studying and researching. When asked what the world they want is, the students affirmed they would like to live in a world of equality, with no discrimination of any kind, and especially with peace among all. After the discussion, they made video recordings of their comments and testimonies about the education they need for the world they want.

Finally, the students were invited to write words related to The education we need on one of the school walls. “Equality”, “quality”, “culture” and “freedom” were some of the words they used to express the elements they consider fundamental to secure appropriate education systems.

The conversation was not finished yet. The participants of this activity offered to repeat the same roundtable and dynamic with younger students from that school.


#The educationWeNeed

CLADE’s and UNICEF’s initiative is aimed at gathering the voices from adolescents and youths in the region and at encouraging them to express their ideas and opinions, using the tag #The educationWeNeed, through short videos, photographs, texts, poems, drawings or other forms of expression.

They are invited to use the hash #The educationWeNeedto express how education should be in order to ensure social, economical, cultural and environmental life in its entirety and the realization of rights and a horizon of dignity for all.

The points of view from students and youths will be systematized and sent in both text and audiovisual formats to the UN Committee of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to human rights bodies at all levels, UNESCO, authorities in the Inter-American System of Human Rights and the United Nations, as well as to authorities who are active within the education field at national and regional levels.