The Orphaned Starfish Foundation has been working with Associação Jesus de Nazaré for over 21 years. They were OSF’s second established tech center, and first ever in Brazil. The strides we have made over the last two decades are a testament to the power of equipping the younger generation with technology education for a better future. Below AJN shares some of what we have been able to accomplish together since we began. And we do not plan on stopping anytime soon, because there is still so much more to do.



1. How did you get involved with OSF?



In 2000, Mrs. Christa Bonhoff told us we were going to welcome a magician called Mr. Andy Stein, who would perform to our kids. The idea was to welcome him during the weekdays, and we were extremely excited and anxious about the possibility of meeting a foreign magician in our institution.



I have this memory as clear as water until this day. Andy, a man with an easy smile, got here wearing shorts and carrying a lot of air balloons. Then, he filled the balloons one by one skillfully, making balloon animals for each kid as a gift. Kids were smiling and getting very emotional while getting their presents. This day became an unforgettable experience for all of us.



Apart from the balloons, Andy made many sorts of performances involving magic to the kids, creating an environment of a spectacle itself. It was unforgettable. These visits Andy made us in Brazil became regular throughout the time that has passed since this day. On each day of these visits, we are pleased to welcome Andy one more time, and are absolutely certain that it is always a very pleasant and happy day.

What we did not know back in the day was about the lasting impact of these magic(al) moments. Through the time, we have found out that Andy and his crew’s caring actions, filled with joy, would start a real transformation in the lives of our kids and professionals who were and are working at the institution. What we did not know is that the real magic was starting to happen right in front of our eyes, and we can see it happening every day we have spent working in this place, thanks to everything Andy has gently given us.



As a big surprise, we found out that through OSF, Andy was planning to build a Technology Center here. Back then, we had only three computers destined for administrative purposes. We had to occupy them to organize the work we were doing at the institution. Today, thanks to Andy’s plan, we have computers, laptops and Macs available to all kids, teens and adults in our informatics classes and the school support. We can provide them machines for research purposes and help them build independence with their knowledge.



The transformation Andy has made in our lives is visible and really touching to see it happening. It is truly inspiring and, most certainly, it leaves positive marks, ineffable to our beings and our institution.



2. Tell us the story of your community.



Our Association is located in the periphery of Leopoldina, in a neighborhood called Ramos. This location is surrounded by hoods and communities affected by poverty, like Complexo da Maré, Complexo da Penha, Parada de Lucas, Bonsucesso, Cordovil e Vigário Geral. Each one of these communities contributes to the diversity of our city, bringing together unique characteristics: socially, culturally and economically.





Unfortunately, poverty is a prominent characteristic in these communities, many times coexisting with the risks criminality brings to our society. These areas face socio economic challenges on a daily basis: the lack of access to education, job opportunities and basic needs. The persistence of poverty influences the whole dynamics of people’s lives and frequently it raises a suitable environment for criminals.



Nevertheless, we want to make a difference! Our Association is strategically located in a place where our kids can easily access. More so, this location allows us not only to help kids and teens, but also adults and the elderly, to face all these struggles through education and professional development. Our job is of the utmost importance to all the communities surrounding us, allowing us to keep contributing positively in this region.



3. What are the biggest challenges your students face?



Unfortunately, there are many challenges our students have to face. We can highlight:

Violence and insecurity: It is common to see shootings and violence in the streets students live in. This fact brings to their lives an environment of unsafety, leading to absence at school or even school evasion, the same way as with other extra activities they might take part in trying to seek self development and care. It has an extremely negative impact on their lives and their emotional state;



School evasion: Many teenagers are forced to leave school to find a job to contribute to their home maintenance because of financial insecurity. For this, they do not have the same opportunities as teenagers who are able to dedicate their lives exclusively to school, perpetuating a cycle of limitation, of social descending and poverty;



Family responsibilities: The lack of services of nursery, institutions to handle the earliest stages of education and elementary schools in their communities forces teenagers with younger brothers and sisters to stay home to take care of the little ones, while their parents are working. This directly affects their access to education and their personal development;



Lack of technical resources: The difficult access to computers, printers or even to the internet in many residences throughout the communities affects their slight chance to seek for opportunities online and their interconnection with a globalized, digital 21st century world;



The covid-19 pandemic: It exacerbated the social inequality that has always existed in our country. As developed in the previous topic, the lack of access to technology made it hard or even impossible to attend online classes, and it led to a serious degree of delay in their learning process, to a deficiency of their basic knowledge and to an emotional instability. All of these unfortunate events together can and will affect their self esteem each day when they compare themselves to other students who do not suffer from the same problems;



Lack of leisure and cultural activities: The insecurity does not help bringing safe spaces to the hoods so the kids and teens can have a space for socializing, nor for recreational activities and sports. This problem limits their full development as human beings, and keeps them far away from having opportunities to enrich themselves outside the school environment;



Lack of perspective: All the difficulties we have mentioned can lead to a feeling of hopelessness, demotivating young girls and boys to seek for a better life, better education and better opportunities.

The worst challenge is the harassment they face in their communities, responsibility of the intense criminal activity in Rio de Janeiro. Some teenagers end up falling into false perspectives that crime pays. Thus, their biggest challenge is also ours: our main goal and biggest dream is to help young people overcome their struggles while transforming their lives through the activities we offer them.



4. Tell us the story of one of your students.



We have a very kind, joyful and gentle student called Agatha. She is a thirteen-year-old girl, filled with her dreams of what she wants to become in the future and how to do it. On the top of it all, she is welcome to all kinds of knowledge the world has to offer her. We love to have Agatha with us. She is very skilled with arts: she loves everything about colors, decorations, and she truly knows how to make someone look and feel prettier with makeup and nails. Her grandmother, Silvia, is also a student at our institution. She takes informatics and dance classes in the morning and Agatha comes to the regular classes in the afternoon.



Unfortunately, Agatha’s neighborhood is not as kind as she is. Frequently, Agatha arrives at our institution with a lot of difficulty. On many days, she is not able to go to school in the morning, consequently not being able to come here in the afternoon as well. The neighborhood she lives in, Vila do João, located in the Complexo da Maré, the biggest favela in Latin America, is in the middle of a true war scene for the residents. It is between two locations ruled by two different factions, so shootings and confrontations are very frequently placed right next to Agatha’s home. Also, there is a very delicate topic in Rio de Janeiro concerning how the police handle the operations they do inside the favelas of Rio. In many times, the violence is first handed by the police itself – in many times, innocent poor people in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro cannot trust the ones who were supposed to protect them from crimes. When the police decide to operate in the favelas, real confrontation is always expected to happen with heavy armory and weaponry, leading to streets where people cannot go through in any possible way.



Nevertheless, even with the struggles Agatha and her grandmother face everyday, they are always willing to come to our institution to put smiles on people’s faces. They are very attentive students, kind human beings, and we are so glad to offer them a place that can represent safety and comfort. Here, Agatha is able to learn the content she misses at school when it closes due to violence and police brutality. She can also feel included in a place where people are the most pleased to help her with everything she needs. In the English classes, Agatha comes with a huge smile, willing to do exercises and solve the doubts she might have.



Unfortunately, we cannot say that Agatha is one of the few who face these problems. Many students deal with what we have mentioned everyday, and struggle to just leave their houses to go to school or go to work when they have one. For these people, even finding a job is harder because employers might know that people who live in these risky hoods are most likely to miss a day’s work because of the impossibility of circulating in the streets, so sometimes they tend to dismiss favela residents. We want to keep establishing a place where all people feel they can safely pursue their personal and professional dreams, always providing support.



5. How has OSF affected your kids?



OSF has offered opportunities. With the granted access to education and to technologies, supported by our professionals and the equipment of the Technology Center implemented in our institution, the students have the chance to develop essential skills with the Microsoft Office features. They can also learn how to fix and prevent problems in the equipment with the computer maintenance classes. They learn how to surf the web, find resources and content they might need or want, leading to a more effective and independent process of learning. This access to technology contributes significantly to student development and helps them get ready to face the modern world challenges and changes, as well as future opportunities.



Besides, English teaching plays a key role in the development of our students, since it gives them a bigger set of opportunities to get into the job market and access the academic world. It allows students to seek for a full professional and educational development, granting a more successful career. With all skills concerning the English language and technology combined, we can help them prepare for a globalized, international, interconnected and competitive world with confidence and well developed abilities.



6. What kind of changes have you seen in them?



First of all, they have been working on their self esteem. Even facing countless challenges everyday, they start believing they deserve the same opportunities as other kids outside these risky areas, the same way they also deserve to become motivated individuals, ready to pursue their dreams. These transformations have reached all ages, from 6 to 60 year olds, since they start to feel how it is like to be valued for their skills and achievements, and start building confidence based on the knowledge we help them acquire. Thus, this makes them adopt a more positive attitude towards their own opportunities of self fulfillment. Besides, they develop social competence which allows them to establish connections and take part in better social relationships.



7. What are they learning?



Our basic informatics classes can offer our students of all ages an interactive, creative and stimulating environment of learning, based on their purposes and needs. Through ludic activities and practice, they develop fundamental skills to understand computers in a fun way. The course covers essential topics such as Windows and the Office features (Word, Excel and Powerpoint). Besides, we also teach them how to navigate the internet with safety, basic notions of Web Design, whilst stimulating their creativity and demonstrating how technology is working nowadays.



In order to spread their knowledge even more, we include in our course an introduction to computer maintenance, working on how to fix and prevent problems. Students can learn how to solve frequent issues the system and the computer might frequently have, assuring a fluid functioning of the machines and enriching their technical and technological abilities.



Besides the computer skills, we also have a basic English course to offer students enough knowledge to get into the job market ahead of the majority who unfortunately do not have the same opportunity of learning a new language. With their English skills, they can also develop technological skills even faster.



Finally but not least, we offer complementary activities such as Dance classes and Sports.



8. What kind of opportunities has it created?



The courses we offer at our institution open doors to valuable life opportunities:

With basic informatics, students can get into the job market and prepare for careers which are raising a lot of visibility with the world’s technological evolution. Careers involving information technology, design, marketing and correlated areas are a few of the possibilities they can consider;

• Web Design stimulates their creativity, allowing students to explore the creation of websites and online content/applications. It opens doors to consider careers involving entrepreneurship;

• English offers essential skills to stand out in the job market, to consider studies and jobs abroad, to become an international globalized citizen and be included in the new world, which does not have space anymore for monolingualism;

• Computer maintenance teaches students how to solve technical problems, providing them with valuable skills to solve daily problems with machines they might work with in the future or even their devices at home for the ones who have it.



 All these opportunities provide them with a solid basic knowledge to prosper in a digital world which is constantly changing, the same way as they offer them advantages to compete in the job market.



9. How does this center benefit the community?



In the educational field, we have mentioned throughout this questionnaire many aspects about how our students take benefits from our work. But, focusing on our community, we can highlight our Cyber Stein room. This room is frequented by students everyday and it is also open to everyone who needs to access the internet and does not have a device at home to do so. In these cases, they can apply to job offers, they can print their CV to submit to any job opportunity, they access government websites to have their rights granted as citizens who need public aid, they can print their bills when necessary, they have technology support from our IT and, finally, surf the web as leisure as well. It is important to mention that we offer this service for free: they do not have to pay to use Cyber Stein. Even though it is less common today, whenever people need to make phone calls – since phone services are essentially paid in Brazil – and do not have any coverage at home to do so, they can use our cellphones and telephone.



Our technology center also has a Social Services field, through which we provide the opportunity to help get their CPF (the Brazilian SSN), citizenship identification, and access government programs to aid people in need. Also, the Social Services search for programs, institutions, organizations and possible partnerships – a partnership like the great one we made with OSF during the pandemic, helping countless families with food – that work with donations of all kinds: furniture, clothing, food, hygiene kits. The same way, whenever possible, with the fundraising we organize through the community, we donate food to families in need.



10. What is our biggest hope for the center and the community?



Our biggest hope is to one day transform our Technology Center into the main reference of charity work in our community. Besides, we wish to formulate Robotics and Programming courses. For it to come true, we need to modernize our computers in order to keep them updated according to the digital world. Moreover, we want to provide students with a more comfortable environment with climatized classrooms to face all future Brazilian summers to come. For this, it would be really important and interesting to install solar panels to decrease the energy consumption and the corresponding costs.



Therefore, it would be necessary to hire new teachers to handle the new courses we have mentioned, as well as increasing the working hours of the informatics teacher we have now so he can coordinate the technology center to keep it updated, organized and functional.

Another goal is to upgrade our Computer Maintenance course since it is currently handled in basic levels of the subject. We are very determined to expand this program to upgrade our course to upper levels in order to prepare and professionalize our students even more.



We are committed to these causes. We are willing to make these wishes come to fruition so we can provide our students and our community with more and more effective teaching and preparation.



11. Any particularly interesting stories you want to share from the center?



Lino Gabriel started his journey in the Technology Center of Associação Jesus de Nazaré when he subscribed to the course of basic informatics in 2019. With great dedication and organization to his studies, he soon could stand out for his abilities throughout the course. This dedication has opened many doors, including a job as a product stocker at Sonho dos Pés company, where he could use all the knowledge he learned in our Association. This led Lino to a promotion in the administrative center of the company, since he applied all his skills in his working days, showing confidence and getting more and more recognition each day.



Continued contributions to the Orphaned Starfish Foundation at www.osf.org/donate will allow us to continue to serve communities like those of AJN and others around the world for many more years to come.