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Language

English (en)

Date of Award

5-3-2012

Author's School

College of Arts & Sciences

Author's Department

International and Area Studies

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (A.B.)

Restricted/Unrestricted

Restricted

Abstract

This paper examines two development programs specifically aimed at decreasing social exclusion by increasing employability and improving education. For years, the term “development” in Brazil has actually meant rising unemployment, inequality, and general despair. However, the new focus on development as improvement in social welfare, particularly for young people, aims to ameliorate the negative effects of past development projects. The projects examined in this paper are both extremely innovative: a technology, athletics, and arts-based community center in Fortaleza, and a mobile cultural center and children’s circus in Aracati. One program surveyed is still extant, while the other has only fully diminished within the last five years. The former project focuses on teenagers and young people in their early twenties, while the latter deals with elementary- and middle-school aged youngsters. While the two projects appear to be extremely different, they share several important problems and solutions. It remains to be seen whether either of these programs will have a long-term, positive effect on social inclusion and reduction of inequalities. This paper examines the short-term effects of both programs on their individual communities, and suggests opportunities for change and growth in each of them. Though both projects contain excellent ideas for positively influencing employability, education, and poverty reduction for some of Brazil’s most underprivileged young people, both projects come up short in achieving their goals. This paper aims to discuss why this is so, and why both programs were unable to implement the vast changes that they set out to realize. This paper also includes excerpts from discussions with young people who lived in the communities that both projects were catering to. Their voices and opinions lend vital insights toward understanding the efficacy and value of each program.

Comments

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