Extra support for children from favela's in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

With the help of Moments of Joy we have achieved our goal: the project ‘Eu Quero Ser’ started off
with a big bang! In 1,5 month we have recruited several teachers for our different courses with a great result! We are starting off with 21 enthusiastic men and women, all with their own expertise.  End of February, the registrations for the kids commenced: in only 5 days, 115 (!!!) kids and young adults have applied for our courses in the following age ranges:


5-12 years: 31
12-14 years: 32
15-17 years: 22
18 and above: 30


With the amount of teachers, we will be able to tutor, guide and teach all the kids and young adults that have registered, which is great news!


The English Course, the Math and Portuguese tutoring classes and the preparatory classes for the (better) middle schools and universiteit are the most popular. We are really excited to kick-off and are very grateful to Moments of Joy as well as our sponsor, for enabling us to make this happen!!!


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'Eu Quero Ser' is an initiatif of UMRio, a foundation in Rio de Janeiro that is active since 2012 and helps children from 5 - 12 years old in a vulnarable and violent surrounding; the favela Morro do Castro.

This project is linked to the 'Escola Municipal João Brazil' school. Because of this connection they can use the school facilities to give extra lessons in Portugese, English and Math. Subjects that most of these children have fallen behind in. 
Because of these extra lessons the children have a better chance to finish their primary and secondary school and a correction of the "age-grade-distortion" is the result.



The infrastructure of the project is already in place. There are 5 teacher present to help the children with these extra curricular activities. Children can also ask for help in preparation for entrance exams for university. With help from Moments of Joy the foundation hopes to be able to up the numbers of available teachers.

Rio de Janeiro has many favela's where druglords and gangs are the boss, Morro do Castro is one of them. Recent studies have shown that 90% of the people that join the gangs are children in the age of 13 - 18 years old. The most import reason for these children to join the gangs are the lack of chances in education, financial insecurity, the urge to being part of a group, adrenaline and the desire for power.
Through education the foundation hopes to help these children making better choices about their future.



'Eu Quero Ser' means "I want to be" in Portugese. The name of the project is exactly what they want to achieve. Their purpose is to try and make the children realise that - although they live in the favela's - they don't have to accept anything less than children that don't come from the favela's. 
When children are asked how people from outside the favela's think about them their answers can be surprising. Franklin Cruz (14 years old) one of the boys that has been part of the project since it started says: "People think that boys and girls from the favela's are not like other children. They think we are all drugdealers and thiefs but don't realise that we also want to become doctor's, engineers, lawyers or famous football players. They think the best we can achieve is becoming builders, but that is not how it is." 

In the past years UMRio has seen the confidence of the children that have participated in their program grow. The children dare to dream and express their ideas for themselves and their families. 
Moments of Joy would like to support this foundation in helping them achieve their goals.
Quoting our projectfinder Kiki Kruize; "Every day we can see the confidence of these children growing and we want to help make them more ambitious for their goals in the future. This can be during our English lessons, rugby training or our one-on-one talks. The fact that we can contribute to this on a daily basis is and incredible feeling and we would love to continue doing this".