Training for Youth with Disabilities in Brazil

Another year has started, and The Trust for the Americas (http://trustfortheamericas.org) celebrates the results we have achieved with your help in Brazil and across Latin America. Since 2005, our flagship program, POETA (Partnership for Economic Opportunities through Technology in the Americas), has positively impacted the lives of many youth in the western hemisphere.

Today, it has evolved into the POETA Social Franchise, a regional effort to empower the most vulnerable communities in our hemisphere, with centers in 17 countries across the Americas that serve approximately 100,000 individuals a year. The model offers a portfolio of more than 36 products, services, and benefits to the network of centers that strengthen their institutional capacity to better serve target communities.

In partnership with AVAPE (http://www.avape.org.br/portal/), the POETA centers in Brazil train youth with disabilities and equip them with job readiness skills crucial for their successful job inclusion. We have had many success stories, and today we want to tell you all about Lucas. 

Lucas is 16 years old and he has an intellectual disability. He lives with his mother, his 7 year-old sister, and his stepfather. He studies at the Educational Center in Sobradinho, and is currently in his first year of high school. He is a good student and gets good grades. He would like to study physical education to prepare to work for the police. He wants to be a police man because he feels uncomfortable with social injustice and the lack of security for Brazil’s population. He is committed to helping his country become a better one. 

Lucas could have never imagined how much he was going to learn at a POETA Center. He was surprised when he started learning not only about computer science and IT but about personal finance and how to prepare to enter the work world. At the center, he learned how to build his resume. This helped him achieve a part-time paid internship at CAESB, who also provide him with bus passes and meal vouchers. He works in administrative services, where he is able to apply everything that he has learned at the POETA Center. His internship will last two years and will allow him to save up to pay for university.

“The POETA classes have encouraged me to seek new horizons, to believe in myself and in the capacity that I have to overcome my difficulties,” says Lucas. 

Lucas’ story is one of many. With your help, the POETA Social Franchise will be able to continue to work for the social and economic inclusion of vulnerable populations in the Americas in this coming year, fighting to achieve more rights for more people.