Great things are done by a series of small things brought together
CEDUC, the organization Andy, Wessel and I are working with is an amazing place to be at.
The people working there are so inspiring, giving, loving, open and passionate about what they are doing and it is great to meet all the kids that treat us like little Superstars. Yet, I hope that one day they will realize that actually the real Superstars are the teachers and founders of the organization, whereas we are just little lights working at a company.
CEDUC hosts 560 students that are taught by 3 teachers. Now that sounded impossible to us in the beginning as well, but the way they structured their program is so amazing, that it works for 90% of the kids. And it is really amazing to see what they have built the past 9 years and how advanced they are with many of their processes.
To come a little closer to fitting the program to the needs of all their students, CEDUC asked us to support them on creating an online platform. This will be used for students to review content that they missed or have not understood, as a support for the teachers, and for children to review things they have already learned when working at a company (processes like how does sales evolve with a warehouse).
So today we got to meet Nathan, who is developing the online platform. And like everyone at CEDUC he was very open to some ideas, that we actually did not have to say out loud, but just by asking some questions you could see his mind wondering of.
CEDUC is not only helping these young kids, they have 2 other projects as well. One has a focus on women with a critical background to support them in making a living. The other one is a project that was and keeps on touching my heart so much- they are trying to build up a program for kids from shelters. The Brazilian system to my point of view really sucks when it comes to shelters to be honest! When a kid faces an abuse of any kind, social security will take the kid out of the family and bring it to a shelter. Some kids get to go back to their families if the threats are not appearing anymore. But many have to stay, especially dark skinned kids, because they are not able to find host families or are returned. Now the issue with the shelter is, that they cannot take care of a proper education of the kids and many kids are lacking a lot of skills. They remain at the shelters unable to find a job because of their low education, but by their 18th birthday they have to leave the shelters and are left on their own. 90% end up on the streets and eventually die or will be in prisons.
To me this is really heartbreaking! The more incredible I find it, that CEDUC is trying to support these kids in getting proper education to move forward.
Today we also got to listen to the visions of one of the co-founders of CEDUC and there is seriously nothing as inspiring as all these ideas spreading at CEDUC! And what becomes more clear to me here is that finding your strengths and followed by them find a job or project and change something in the world for the better is the best thing you can provide to this world! It does not have to be as big as CEDUC is doing it, but if everyone takes a step forward, the energy and love spread will be unstoppable!
