Country: Brazil
Organization: Associação Comunitária Monte Azul
2) Sector of activity: Education
3) Description of your products or services: In the Moonte Azul neighboorhood, the populatiom of young children and teenagers is very high, 40% of the total population. Beside this fact, the income of the families is very low. That is why the mothers have to work often the whole day and can?t look after their childern. They leave their children at nurseries run by the Monte Azul Community Association.. As the teenagres only go half day to school they could get involved very easily with drug dealers and all the violence that exists in São Paulo. The Association has therefore a youth center, where the teenagers can develope creative activities. The educators of these nurseries and of the youth center are almost all from the slums where the Association is working in. The MAINUMBY PROJECT is an educational course that was elaborated to improve the quality of community education in the serrounding of the Monte Azul community. The educators are often low-income people and get through the course the possibility to enrich their knowledge of education and to get the work with the cildren and the teenagers better. The MAINUMBY PROJECT offers the educators the possibility to learn more about their working field what they could only do by paying a course somewhere else or to get into a payed University or to try to pass through the very dificult test of the public University which is almost impossible for whom never went to a private school and who can?t effort the preparation course. Through out the MAINUMBY PROJECT the educators
4) Description of the operational model: The MAINUMBY PROJECT course is twice a month at suturdays and the educators come to the main seat of the Monte Azul Community Association to assist the lessons and to participate of the practical activities. There are seven coordenators that prepare and coordenate the course and in a whole there are 13 teachers to teach the community educators. The inovative aspect in our service is, that the educators from the Association don?t need to pay for the course and only those who come from other institutions have to give a contribution per month. If they can?t effort the course, it is for free for them as well. The Association is offering something to the educators and the Association (throught out the children ans good educators) and them are aproveiting from it. There are diferent sections in the course and the educators can actually get trained in their specific work area. The course is devided in the diferent educational areas such as work with little babys, smaller children or the work with adolecents. But even though there are speeches from professional educators about a variety of themes and there are art sections in which every educator participate. The art group is devided in three different kind of arts. Music, painting, dance.
5) Description of the financial model: The comunity educators from the Monte Azul Community Association don?t need to pay for the course. There are educators from other institutions that need to pay for the course, but if they can?t effort it is allright. The MAINUMBY PROJECT?s first edition was financed by the Japan International Coorperation Agency-JICA and its second edition is today financed by the Software AG. The project is not profitable and depends on its financial source. In the future it is absolutely to achieve that this kind of project can be afforded by the Associação itself and one tries to do so but it is very hard. The Association is financed by 45% from the São Paulo City, but still, 25% comes from national donations, 20% from foreign donations and about 10% Monte Azul gets from its products. This product sector is in extenttion and in the future it should procedure and deliver more financial ressources.
Client fees represent this approximate percentage of operational budget: 0%
6) Key operational partnership: One of the key operational partnership was the JICA that financed the first edition of the MAINUMBY PROJECT. Without them it would not has been possible (Today Software AG). There are partnerships with the coordenators that often comes from other institutions. They are an important part of the whole project because they are organizing the diferent courses and are preparing the lessons.
7) Current outreach:
We are at the Scaling Up stage. There was a first and pioneer pilot project that is represented here fromJune 2001 to October 2004 and this year in 2005 started the second edition.
How many clients have benefited from your product/service in total? Over the last year? In the first edition there were a total number of participants of 128 . From these 128, 63 received the course?s certificate. The others didn?t receive, because they started in the middle of the course. Some of them started in the second edition again.
There were, beside teh Associação Comunitária Monte Azul that organized the project, 10 other institutiuons that send their comunity teachers for the training. Today there are 120 educatores been trained. There are people coming from other 30 NGO?s (55 educators) and not only from Monte Azul.
There were, beside teh Associação Comunitária Monte Azul that organized the project, 10 other institutiuons that send their comunity teachers for the training.
What percentage of your clients is below the poverty line ($2 per day)? 0% There is no exact number of the percentage of our course
particits that are living below the poverty line. But there
are a lot of people that are having very little money to
sustain their families. But a lot of the children and their
families the educators work with live below the poverty-
line.
What is the order of magnitude of the potential demand for your products or services? Which
other low-income groups, countries or regions could benefit from it? Try to quantify (number
of clients, market size in currency):
The demand to participate in the course is high. There is a waiting list and due to the Associação?s limited space and financial possibilities the Associação can?t offer a place for everybody. There are 37 persons on the waiting list. The project could become an institution itself and could be offering training for the imense number of NGO?s acting in the imense number of Slums that exists in São Paulo.
8) Scale-up strategy:
How many low-income individuals do you plan to benefit in three years from now? How are you planning to scale up or replicate your solution? What are the major constraints to scale up?
First of all the plan is to finish the second edition of the MAINUMBY PROJECT in a sucessfull way. The MAINUMBY PROJECT is allready training 120 educators and trained 128 in the first edition. Only in Monte Azul there are 1200 children and adolecents beneficiated with educators that know better how to lead with them. In the future there could be more children have this beneficit, in other institutions. Once our comunity educators are all trained it must be an aim to train the educators of other organizations that can?t train their educators themselves. To scale-up we would need another place to have the course going on, more financial ressources.
Which specific areas - and why - in your field would benefit most from investment by corporations, foundations, and other investors:
With more investment Monte Azul could have more possibilities to invite more NGO?s to send their community educators to be trained in the MAINUMBY PROJECT, because we could build a training center with better possibilities to teach. The spaces where the teachers are training the educators are the rooms where Monte Azul is having normally the lessons for thge children. Rooms are little and the rooms are not made for the course.
9) The organization: How does the initiative fit with your overall organization's strategic goals and priorities? How did the initiative start?
The organization?s values and mission is: “To foster love for the human being regardless of nationality, race, religion, political affiliation, social and physical conditions and to provide opportunities through education, culture, ecology and health care, mainly for less- privileged people. To help the people develop materially, socially, and spiritually, stimulating them to act consciously with freedom and love.”
One of the Monte Azul?s priorities is absolutely the education of children and try to make their childhood a nice one. Try to show the adolecents another way, away from the drugdealers and all the violence. The training of the people that directly works with the 1200 children and teenagers in the Associação fits absolutely into the priorities of our work and so the initiative became part of Monte Azul.
The society often thinks that a work or a service only can have quali
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10) On the mosaic diagram, which of these factors is the primary focus of your work?
- Factor: Poor understanding of the human and social capitals of low income communities
- Principle: Leverage the power of communities as both consumers and producers
Contact Information:
Name: Dennis Pauschinger
Organization: Associação Comunitária Monte Azul
Mailing address: international@monteazul.org.br
Country: Brazil
Email: monteazul@monteazul.org.br
Tel: 0055 11 5851-5370
Fax: 0055 11 5851-1089
Website: www.monteazul.org.br
Organization's legal status: Community Association
Number of Employees: 220
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