Breakfast seminar on “Quality and Inclusive Public Education in Brazil: Teachers Leading the Way”

Advancing Brazil’s public education system is crucial to reducing poverty and income inequality and promoting social and economic prosperity.  Recognizing the need for educational reform, in 2010, a group of literacy teachers from Santa Luzia do Itanhy (SE), Brazil partnered with neuroscientists from Unicamp, under the coordination of The Human Project, to create Synapse, a methodology employing teachers as activators and multipliers to improve public school education in the small and poorest municipalities of Brazil.

Synapse is currently present in 52 municipalities in 7 Brazilian states, engaging more than 2,000 teachers and benefiting more than 35,000 students annually.  Additionally, in 2018, Synapse Educação Infantil was established to focus on the socioemotional development of children in the first years of life – and is now present in 6 Brazilian municipalities.  Collectively, these entrepreneurial initiatives transformed into the Synapse Network, an autonomous social organization led by teachers, with operational support from partners and investors, with the goal of improving public education in Brazil.

To showcase this teacher-led movement, the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with The Human Project, hosted a breakfast seminar highlighting the Synapse Network’s mission of providing quality and inclusive public education in Brazil.  The program uncovered a process of continuous improvement and evaluation in which teachers assume the responsibility of doing their best to provide all Brazilian children with quality early childhood education and literacy by 2030.

*Presentations were in Portuguese

Moderator :

Saulo Barreto, Institutional Relations and Business Development, The Human Project

Speakers:

Kiara Ramos, Founder and Mobilization Leader, Synapse Network; Municipal Literacy Teacher, Santa Luzia do Itanhy, Sergipe, Brazil

Lícia Muniz, Municipal Preschool Teacher, Santa Luzia do Itanhy, Sergipe, Brazil

Registration Information (In-Person):

Members: Free
Non-Members: $25

Location: Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce  – 485 Madison Avenue, Suite 401, New York, NY 10022