Araçá Project: Sowing Environmental Education

Abstract

Centro Cultural Araçá is a non-profit Civil Society Organization created in 1994 by university students from the Biology and Pedagogy courses at Centro Universitário Norte do Espírito Santo, from Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo. An alternative education proposal was developed, aimed at street children and adolescents using art, culture and environmental education as a pedagogical strategy to win over and include socially excluded young people from the city of São Mateus, in the north of the state of Espírito Santo. This municipality is one of the oldest in Brazil, with about 120 thousand inhabitants, the majority being urban and made up of poor and black people. Most have a school history permeated by repetition, dropout and lag, which is reflected in the disrespect for the environment, in the lack of knowledge of their rights as citizens. The environmental experience has added new values ​​to the mission of Araçá, contributing to the construction of a more dignified future for the new generations, based on the appropriate use of the environmental resources of São Mateus. The students, on a daily basis, start to intervene as citizens in their community and carry out actions aimed at valuing, preserving and conserving the historical, cultural and environmental heritage of the place where they live.