Fund creates financing for rural education in the Amazon

Mencius Melo – From Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The launch of the Territories United for Resources for Education (Future) Fund, by the Interelos Institute, with the support of the JBS Fund for the Amazon, on the last 21st, in São Paulo, promises to allocate resources to finance Family Farming Schools (EFAs) and Rural Family Homes (CFRs) in the Amazon. The model integrates education in the productive chain, bringing the reality of life of the rural youth as an element of learning to have a more continuous and lasting character. It is an investment in education and sustainability.

The initial investment will be R$ 1.6 million, made by the JBS Fund for the Amazon, for the structuring and maintenance of the project over the next three years. The estimate is that by 2027, the fund will raise R$ 60 million. CENARIUM MAGAZINE talked to the anthropologist and professor of the Federal Institute of Education of Amazonas (Ifam), Alvatir Carolino, about the proposal. “The fund is important, but, it is necessary to have perenniality and understand the geographic issues of the Amazon and the multiple cultures that have their specificities”, highlighted the technician.

Alvatir pointed out: “It is necessary to understand the cycles that are determinant in our region, so the installation of these houses destined for education needs to respect the multiple dimensions of the Amazon rural life, which need to be observed and respected to install projects of this nature. These are ideas that need to dialog with the geographic realities and the peculiarities of each people. They are geographical and cultural dimensions,” he advised. “It is as the writer Leandro Tocantins says: in the Amazon, the river commands life,” he pointed out.

French inspiration

Inspired by a French model, the Escolas Família Agrícolas (EFAs) and Casas Familiares Rurais (CFRs) arrived in Brazil in the 1980s and, today, are part of the reality for students, teachers and entire families, in the most distant and least populated regions of the country. In the Amazon, the long distances make it difficult for students to go to traditional schools. It is in this context that the EFAs and CFRs present themselves as one of the most appropriate teaching models, since they are based on the alternance pedagogy – a method in which the student spends 15 days at school and 15 days at home.

Alvatir pointed out another detail: “The field education units need to be in tune, including, with the production cycles. In certain regions there is the nut cycle, in another, the piassava cycle, and in others, the fish season”, he detailed. “All this must be taken into consideration when implementing projects such as the EFAs and CFRs,” he pondered. “It is necessary that these schools adapt to the lives of these people. It is the educational unit that has to mold itself to the lives of these people, not the people who have to mold themselves to the schools,” he emphasized.

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The technician pointed out: “Of course the funding is fundamental because it is the one that will guarantee the establishment, transportation system for teachers, adequate housing, and scholarships for specific activities for teachers and technicians. Another factor is the displacement of students and their families. There are cases in which the family spends two days traveling to get to school and, in these cases, scholarships are of great value”, he analyzed. “The fund can work, but it needs to dialogue, mainly, with the Federal Institute of Education (Ifam), which has a huge know-how in this area,” he concluded.

Knowledge

Even with the difficulties listed, anthropologist Aerton Paiva, founder of the Interelos Institute, commented: “Future will not only guarantee the financial flow to the schools, it will also receive projects to help with management quality, with teams that will train the students themselves. This will be a fundamental part of the knowledge. We are saying that this biome is important and a fundamental part of this biome are the people, they are the ones who can make the transformations. The fund is perhaps one of the most in-depth contributions to the process of preservation, conservation and sustainable expansion of the Amazon biome”, he evaluated.