The students didn’t care. At the Júlio César de Moraes Passos and Arthur Soares Amorim state schools, the high dropout rates showed that students there felt little motivation to take part in activities proposed by the teachers, much less to change the education they were getting or the reality of the communities they lived in, on the outskirts of Manaus, in Brazil’s Amazon region.

The students lacked encouragement and opportunity. They not only felt alienated from their own education, they did not feel empowered as citizens or agents of change. They needed to feel they were part of the process. So it was, during Sociology class, that this seemingly hopeless scenario began to change.

The students started to participate in talks and lectures in order to identify the main problems in their neighborhoods that they would like to change. One of the students suggested that the group get in touch with a city councilman in order to fix the problem that most bothered him: the horrible state of disrepair of his street. The group embraced the idea, and started discussing and looking for solutions to problems that affected not only themselves, but their entire community.

This is how the Voz Ativa (Active Voice) project was born. “We visited hospitals, bus stations and police departments to do field research and find out about the problems the people who worked in these places or used these services experienced,” says Hellainy Gabriele Oliveira da Costa, 18, one of the members of the group.

Their survey was conducted between July and September of 2017. The students made questionnaires and spoke with parents, classmates and neighbors. After coming up with a list of problems, they delivered approximately 100 proposals to the legislators of the state of Amazonas. “We conducted over 800 interviews and went to over 200 state congressmen and city councilmen with the list of demands in our hands,” explains Gabriele Ribeiro de Araújo, 17. “Many of the demands, like fixing potholes in the streets, were answered,” she recalls.

In addition to the improvements to roads and sanitation, the initiative kept the group’s representatives mobilized. One of the students took part in the Young Lawmaker program, in Brasília, which offers experiences in Brazil’s lower house of Congress to public high school students from around the country. About five other students are currently taking part in the Young Regional Parliament, and another three have signed up for the 2017 Young Senator program. “The teacher’s goal was to show us that we have a voice, that we can demand our rights,” says Hellainy.

As a result of the project, the City Council held a formal session in October 2017 to recognize the importance of these students’ actions to the city of Manaus. “Our biggest lesson was that we need to unite in order to defend the majority’s interests. The students saw that the job held by a public authority is not private, but that they are in fact our representatives,” says Girleno Menezes Barbosa, the teacher who guided the students during the project’s development. “They realized that, as citizens, our mission does not end at the ballot box, and that we should keep track and suggest changes that can help everyone.”

 

The Voz Ativa (Active Voice) project was one of the winners of the 2017 Design for Change Challenge. Organized by Alana in Brazil, Design for Change encourages children and young people to transform their realities, recognizing them as the protagonists of their own stories of change. The initiative is part of a global movement that started in India and is now present in 65 countries, inspiring over 2.2 million children and youngsters around the world.