Bahia Street General Information 2011 (pdf)
Bahia Street currently provides quality education to 75 girls (ages 6-14) from impoverished neighborhoods in Salvador, Brazil. The girls study at the Bahia Street Center for four hours each afternoon, and receive instruction in reading, writing, math, science, history, English, and capoeira. In addition to the academic program, Bahia Street provides health care and education, art therapy, and programs working with issues of violence and inequality. Bahia Street funds transportation, uniforms, books, school materials, and nutrition in the form of one hot meal each day. Prior to coming to the Center for a hot lunch and shower, the girls attend public school for four hours each morning (the normal school day in Brazil).
The Result
Bahia Street gives girls an opportunity to become leaders in their own communities as well as the outside world. The public schools they attend are weak in academics; because our students receive additional schooling through Bahia Street, they quickly rise to the top of their public school classes and become leaders there. Other students turn to them for help and tutoring. Their public school teachers say the Bahia Street girls are an inspiration for themselves and their students. As a result, the girls gain self-confidence and leadership skills. Even the youngest girls learn to be activists and to give back to their communities and ask for change in the public schools.
All of the girls who take their end of year exams pass with grades of eighty percent or higher. Each year a few students miss the exam due to illness or other traumatic events such as rape, murder or other violence to themselves or those they love. This is an incredible achievement considering that nearly all of these girls are illiterate when they begin the Bahia Street program.
Bahia Street provides quality education through the equivalent of the eighth grade. Bahia Street encourages its graduates to attend a high school downtown which, although lacking in academics, is safe.
Bahia Street provides tutoring to help its graduates pass the difficult university entrance exams. To date, 15 girls have entered university and two have graduated.
Bahia Street teaching staff and methodology
The Bahia Street Center has fourteen full and part-time staff who are all (except for the English teacher) African-Brazilian university graduates from the shantytowns or rural Bahia. This gives them a unique understanding of the issues the girls face as well as understanding the importance of the social change the Bahia Street program is effecting. Concepts of citizenship are explored through interactive classes. Classes use techniques of reflection, workshops about the girls’ health, group dynamics, videos, music, dance, art, visits to museums, libraries, monuments and historic sites — all with the objective to facilitate learning, stimulate interest and develop the cognitive perception of the children.
Bahia Street teachers have developed a curriculum informally called “The Bahia Street Method” to make school studies relevant to the lives of shantytown residents. For example, the girls will study microbiology through examination of microbes in the sewer water in front of their homes. Integral to the Bahia Street program is confronting inequality of race, class and gender, and these issues are included in all aspects of the teaching program. The teachers themselves have become inspired by what they are creating, and two have begun grassroots programs in their own neighborhoods based upon the Bahia Street model.
