Our Level the Playing Field campaign draws on our successes in addressing acute inequalities and disadvantages facing young people in 2020. The 2020 pandemic brought with it deepening inequalities and the increased threat of abject poverty and hunger around the world. As we reported throughout the year, 79% of the young people we work with were living in extreme poverty, 38% were living on less than US$1 per day and 68% did not have enough money for food.

Brazil’s response to the pandemic cause global concern. The original GBP 75 per month of federal emergency aid granted to the most vulnerable households at the start of the pandemic, was cut by half in august 2020 and abandoned all together in January 2021. As a result of this, between January and March 2021, we have had a 200% increase in students reporting hunger. This has come in a time where UmRio has experienced a 31% reduction in funding, resulting from the pandemic.

Currently 30 students and their families (a total of 139 people) are living on less than US$1 a day. These students have been identified as being at a heightened risk of hunger, child labour, digital exclusion, school abandonment and ultimately within the context of Morro do Castro, other risky behaviour including drug-trafficking.

To respond to the acute needs of these 30 students, we have set up the Level the Playing Field Campaign with a fundraising target of GBP 10.000. Help us help these kids and their families.

In 2018, we re-launched Eu Quero Ser, with the support of our sponsors, João Brazil School, and the Morro do Castro community. With this project we aim to improve academic performance and prepare young people for entrance exams, re-adjust age grade discrepancies and provide them with entry level opportunities.

We understand that having the best teachers, the most concentrated students, and the most equipped classrooms is not enough. Many young people in Morro do Castro face financial pressures, and it is only by relieving these pressures through an employability programme that we will get students into the classroom. Therefore Eu Quero Ser was relaunched as an education and employability programme, that aims to improve academic performance, prepare young people for secondary school and university entrance exams, whilst simultaneously promoting professional development. By equipping young people for the job market and providing paid (and voluntary) work experience that can enhance their professional projection, Eu Quero Ser works to suppress financial pressures to choose prematurely between the classroom and the working world.