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The Blackout
Brazil is a country that has lots of rivers and the industrial planning uses them as the principal way to generate electricity. Until a while ago we all could use energy a lot and pay just a little money. Nowdays we are having a big problem: It´s been rainning less, so there is a big chance that the country might run out of electricity. 90% of the eletrical production in Brazil is generated by water.
The goverment elaborated some plans to try solving this problem, like:
Show everybody how serious the problem is and teach us what we need to do to save and spend less energy..
Each house has a limit to spend and this depends how much the owner used to spend in the past (they took an average from May, June and July from the year 2000) and if people use more than they are allowed the goverment may cut our electricity for 3 days and charge us high fees.
People seem to be getting used to this situation and have been spending a lot less.
English For Ever School - December 2001
 
HUNGER
One million and eight hundred thousand "paulistas" (people who live in São Paulo City) livein slums. Six hundred thousand live in slum houses. These people are submitted to humiliating life conditions.
Families of twelve people live smashed in one single room.
One bathroom is divided among 50 families.
Most of these families are nordestinos (people from the Northeastern part of Brazil) and also black families.
Ninety percenty of these families are headed by women, this happens because a lot of men abandon their families to live in the streets where most of them are destroyed by alcohol addiction.
Source - Isto é Magazine
English For Ever School - December 2001
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Children Labor
What to do with almost 3 million Brazilian children who are being used as labor force? Brazil doesnt know. For the moment, their destiny is continue working, even against the law. The Brazilian legislation prevents children under 16 to work, just in case they are as apprentices (trainees) . But between obeying the law and supporting their family, there isnt much choice...
Many children do tasks which are the worst sort of minor exploitation. Some of these tasks are prostitution, slavery, drug dealing and activities which are harmful to health, physical and moral integrity. São Paulo is the State where the biggest amount of workers from 5 to 14 years of age are concentrated. One million children are working instead of going to school (950,000 children are working in the cities and about 100,000 are working in the rural area). In the Northeast of Brazil, most of the children find work in the rural area.
In spite of this situation which is very serious, the new generation hopes for better days to come. According to the Organização Mundial do Trabalho , Brazil can be considered as an example to other countries in some aspects like creating scholarships the money contribution goes to the parents who should keep their children in school. This kind of scholarship has helped eliminating the children labor in the coal-fields in Mato Grosso do Sul, it has taken out 60,000 children from sugarcane plantation in Pernambuco and it has reduced to 30,000 the amount of children working in the sisal plantation in Bahia.
English For Ever School - December 2001
Trash
Did you know in Brazil nowadays, 80,000 tons of trash is produced every day?
Yes, and unfortunately from this enormous quantity of trash, just 42,000 tons of that have been collected and, the rest is thrown away in waste land, rivers and improper places.
Brazil loses about R$ 4,6 billion (U$ 9 billion) per year because part of its trash produced isnt recycled. Just 0,9% of all 60-65% of organic trash go to compost industries (30% of the agricultural products are wasted, from harvest to final distribution). The amount of organic trash reveals that Brazilian people waste food.
Each year, 900 million of batteries are thrown away and about 35 million of tyres are discarded, 1 million of them may be burned or thrown away in rivers.
Is there any solution? The solution to face the trash problem in Brazil is to apply a variety of processes to control its production and treatment. These techniques combination is called Gerenciamento Integrado do Lixo Urbano (Integrated Managing of City Trash). The commitment of this program is based in the three Rs motto: REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE.
English For Ever School - December 2001
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Education
The Educational System in Brazil is divided in four periods Kindergarten (from 4 to 6 years old), Elementary School (from 7 to 14 old), Highschool (from 15 to 17 years old) and Higher Education.
The Brazilian student life is full of ups and downs. There are good news like the great amount of students going to school. In 1994, 89,1% of children, ages ranging from 7 to 14 went to school. In 1999, this amount increased to 95,5%. However, the positive numbers rank Brazil in a good position, comparing to other countries. Flunking and dropping out of school are two Brazilian problems which UNESCO mentioned in a report in 1997. According to that report, one in four children had flunked a school year once before getting to 5th grade. And 29% of the students had dropped out of school between grades 1st and 5th . Besides that, there are a great amount of illiterate people in Brazil. In 1997 they were 15,8 million Brazilian who could not read or write.
The major barriers are the high cost of education, families may need to withdraw children from school to work, they may also be unable to afford a complete education; some schools infrastructure is deficient; teaching standards are low; the amount of student in the same classroom is about of 40-45 children.
When a student is able to finish Highschool there is the preparation to be admitted in a university. Here in Brazil there is an admission test called Vestibular and each school or university has their own different tests. Public universities tests are the most difficult to be done and just 5% of students graduate in college or university.
English For Ever School - 2001 |
