Dear Donors,
We are able to help and provide our kids in the communities a better education because of you, and also the support we receive from our volunteers — without both of you our work would not be possible. Our volunteers come from different walks of life and have their own reasons for wanting to help, ultimately sharing the same goal: promote reading and better education to kids in rural, remote areas of the Amazon. Here is a story shared by one of our international volunteers, Su, coming from China and doing an MBA in Germany..
Tell us about your experience with Vaga Lume in Brazil. What made you choose that specific project, and what is it like so far?
Brazil is a country that I have always wanted to visit after my volunteering experience in Venezuela. As a kid I was kind of a bookworm, so their mission to bring books to kids in rural remote areas of the Amazon excites me.
A good book is like a good trip that can bring us a new perspective on life and be an inspiration for us, just like a firefly, the English meaning of Vaga-lume, which the organisation is named after. Alongside the mission, the project itself is also very attractive. My team works with fundraising, which is an essential part for any NGO. Specifically working with international fundraising, I’m putting to test my networking skills and business expertise.
Because of COVID-19, the team hasn’t been meeting in person for the past two years. To help me, my classmate and project colleague, integrate into the team, we started to have weekly meetings biweekly from the start of the project. We even had a team event where the whole team gathered to do a walking tour in downtown São Paulo.
My team lead, Fernanda Prado, is an outstanding leader and a talented hairdresser. She knows where she wants the team to go, but she also gives us a lot of flexibility to discover what we can and want to do for the project.
My other teammates are also super smart and fun to work with. Rafael Sasso, who has a very rich and interesting career path, always knows how to prioritise “the million” tasks he has on his plate while having the patience to answer all my questions. Felipe Cincinato is the creative mind in our team and is always passionate about new ideas and telling us all about his projects.
Elisa Villaméa, freshly graduated from university, has already gained much experience in communication and partnership building during her internship with Vaga Lume.
What are some of the things that you have learned since being involved with the project?
The ability to network is very important. I’ve learned this in the MBA, but during the project, it has been reinforced even more. During the MBA I gradually built up my confidence and started to feel more and more comfortable. In the project there are many moments that I’m networking and I see myself doing so both intentionally and unintentionally.
For example, to learn how to better use the resources on an international fundraising platform, I have joined an online networking event and have been talking with many other NGOs about their experiences, collecting learnings, tips, and struggles. I’ve also introduced a girl who works in a Ugandan NGO, that is also focused on children’s education, to one of my classmates who is currently doing RLF in Uganda.
Rather unintentionally, I convinced an alumnus to donate to support my project with Vaga Lume. We were having a virtual coffee talk to understand his post-MBA journey in Germany where I introduced him to the project, and it wasn’t my intention to achieve a donation in this talk but it naturally happened.
In the same sense, we invite you to donate and support Vaga Lume’s work in Amazon so we can keep empowering children and maximising their bright beautiful future. Donate now! =D
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Since 2001, Vaga Lume has donated more than 153 thousand books to community libraries spreaded throughout the Brazilian Amazon. This is a number that shows us that with the union of people who believe in social transformation through reading, it is possible to change realities and boost many dreams. Have you ever stopped to think about the impact that reading and mediation can cause?
That said, we will take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about our Early Childhood project, which seeks to deepen the methodology focused on reading in early childhood – a period in which the brain most needs stimuli, since 90% of brain connections are established by the age of 6 (UNICEF, 2006).
The investments for the project focus on:
Five communities chose to participate in this Early Childhood project:
"We believe that it is important for the child to have contact with reading, as it is the basis for the formation of the child's character, which from pregnancy to the family environment, makes the child receive emotional baggage from this period of development." Maria, a volunteer at the Sobradinho Community, in Barreirinhas (MA)
Your donation helps us to strengthen our 86 libraries, train reading mediators, promotes children development, cultural exchange and strengthen local culture. Donate and shine with Vaga Lume in Amazon.
The project started with a visit by the founders to the Brazilian Amazon and has already impacted over than 100,000 children.
Through a cultural experience, a trip to the giant Amazon, the group of friends Sylvia, Laís, and Fofa began Vaga Lume’s story. In their early 20s, they traveled to Pará state to experience the region’s riches and gifted the communities with a small collection of books.
Transformed by the region’s cultural, social and environmental wealth, the trip in 2001 was more successful than they imagined. The books that were given by Vaga Lume positively impacted people in the region. Vaga Lume could not stop.
In 2002, Vaga Lume's Expedition was immersed in the Brazilian Legal Amazon to implement 22 community libraries to boost children’s potential. After 9 months, the friends returned to São Paulo and received countless letters requesting more books.
Vaga Lume made history.
On October 16th, Vaga Lume completes 20 years of history and reaches significant numbers of its work in rural communities in the Amazon, including indigenous communities and quilombolas - the descendants of enslaved population who escaped plantations: there are 86 community libraries spread over nine states in Brazil. Thanks to your support, more than 138,000 books have been donated, more than 4,800 reading mediators have been trained, totaling more than 890 volunteers and more than 100,000 impacted children, youngsters and adults.
Each library is designed and built together with the communities so that the books and materials meet local demands. A team of educators takes care of the entire process of selecting the book collection and training reading-aloud mediators: the basic conditions are settled for the communities’ engagement.
Vaga Lume’s methodology is based on 5 pillars: book, reading aloud mediation, community management, local culture, and cultural exchange. These five points include providing the necessary infrastructure for the community libraries such as books and shelves; promoting reading aloud mediation training; supporting the community management; treasuring local culture by registering the community traditions; and promoting the cultural exchange between different regions in Brazil. Vaga Lume’s libraries are a space to share knowledge, a space where children and adults from the community have access to information and entertainment.
With your support, we have been able to impact the lives of thousands of children.
Follow Vaga Lume to learn more about our projects:
Instagram: @_vaga_lume_
Facebook: @associacaovagalume/
In recent months, Vaga Lume held two meetings to get closer to those who live in rural communities and municipalities in the Brazilian Amazon.
A tradition in the Net Program since 2015, the Teenager’s Meeting is a moment for the participants from São Paulo to meet. Before the pandemic, it was held in parks or cultural spaces. This year, following the recommendations for social distancing, we held Zoom meetings so that both teenagers in São Paulo and those in the Amazon could participate.
On March 22nd, more than 100 teenagers met to share their knowledge. There was a lot of recitation of poetry, dancing and singing. They showed their talents, introduced themselves and encouraged colleagues who were shy. The Talent Show was a success. According to Manuela:
'In my opinion, the Talent Show is a fun and interactive way to make this meeting, as we get to know a little of each person's personality and hobbies. So, there was always an interesting and curious presentation, getting us more and more involved.'.
And as a high point of the Meeting, the Brazilian influencer, Adriel from “Livros do Dri” instagram, also joined us. He shared his passion for books, literature and the opportunities that reading gave him.
In the following month, we reinvented ourselves once more and held the 1st Vaga Lume Virtual Meeting for Partners and Local Teams with the theme "Library of peoples of the fields, rivers and forests". Special guests, references in literature in Brazil, also participated: the authors Conceição Evaristo, Eliane Potiguara and Itamar Vieira Junior and Professor José Castilho, an activist for Public Policies for reading as a human right. We felt everything up close, hugs, smiles, celebrations, exchanges, everything that makes our network so important.
Even though it was an online event the energy of the network is so strong that it brings the certainty that we are very close, that we have always been and that we always will be. We even forgot, for a moment, the territorial distances. We left once again very hopeful, happy, energized and renewed from the event.
One of Vaga Lume's innovations for 2021 was the donation of pedagogical materialfor children who have limited access to educational activities due to the pandemic scenario. The playbooks made by Vaga Lume’s team and illustrated by a local Amazonian artist are filled with activities about local culture and local environment.
Along with the material, the children also received two handmade books produced by the communities with local legends and histories - 'Cobra Grande' (Big Snake) and 'O canto do Jacurutu' (Great horned owl’s singing) - and a kit with school supplies to carry out their activities. Thus, in addition to encouraging children's reading and writing, we also make it possible to strengthen Amazonian culture.
In total, 900 children received the kit from the communities: Menino Deus (Portel, Pará), Damásio (Guimarães, Maranhão), Surumu (Pacaraima, Roraima), Maracatiara (Ouro Preto do Oeste, Rondônia), João Settlement Batista (Castanhal, Pará), Pesqueiro (Soure, Pará), and Perpétuo Socorro (Tefé, Amazonas).
The volunteers who delivered the playbooks report the children's emotion when receiving them, grateful for the material and for the opportunity to continue learning. For many of them, this is one of the few educational activities that they had access to during the pandemic.
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