Teenage Female Protagonist

Most teenagers and specially girls are trying to find their own way to adulthood. In a "machista" culture, impoverished women are pressed to get married, bare children for the men and be supported by them. Two strong contributors are lack of access to computer skills and to jobs. If they don't get married, they work for drug traffickers and in prostitution as a source of income. We are proposing an innovation to our Youth Protagonist Program using computer technology to teach the main program concepts: conflict resolution, individuality, stress coping mechanisms, "machismo", and empathy. This program has already impacted the life of several teenagers in Aracaju (Brazil) by teaching them dignity and living principles. Adding Technology to our program and focusing on teenage girls will increase the employability of women in Aracaju.

In impoverished neighborhoods, the main problem is teenage girls are experiencing teen pregnancy (worldwide 46 births/1000 , Brazil 68,4 births/1000 Higher than the medium number in Latin America, 65,5- UN.org Feb. 28, 2018) and/or work as sex workers for the drug traffickers because they don't see any financial solution out of this environment. The example is learned from their mothers who followed the same path and encourage them perpetuating the machismo culture. They don't learn emotional, social, cognitive, and computer skills to compete for official dignifying jobs. 

The solution, we have been working on, is helping teenage girls learn to own their lives and fight for their dreams (teaching emotional and social skills). They need computer skills. Computer skills are essential to open job opportunities (40% of jobs require knowledge on one of the basic computer software- Word, Excel, Windows- g1.globo.com Nov. 2015). A job will take them to the pathway to their dreams. 

Our solution is utilize technology (basic computer skills) applied to our Youth Protagonist Program and focus on teenage girls. The addition of computer skills is what the teenage girls in our program need.  Computer skills incorporated into the program core values will increase the girls sense of empowerment and self-esteem. We will provide computers to the girls so they can in pairs perform the dynamics of each session goal. They will have to use basic software such as Windows, Word, PowerPoint and Excel while performing the tasks in the program. They will familiarize themselves with computers and learn computer skills through socio-emotional intelligence development activities. 

Our solution will require laptops, software (Windows, Word, Excel, PowerPoint),  and WiFi connections. 

In Aracaju, 53% of the population are women and 22% of the population are under 15 years old (atlasbrasil.org.br/2013). We focus on teenage girls (11 to 15 years old) from low income neighborhoods in public schools. Most of them don't finish secondary school (High School) and take many years to finish primary school (Junior High). They don't receive a good quality education (the 2019 IDEB, Basic Educational Development Index, for public schools is 4.8- out of 7- 2019 Report from the State Secretary of Education seed.se.gov.br/arquivos/). Access to computers and computer skills will increase the quality of their education. 

We have been developing this program in several public schools in Aracaju for the last 8 years and currently we've develop this program in one neighborhood (in partnership with one Public school). Adding technology to this program will increase the interest in computers, in girls owning their lives by seeing a better future for them, and the possibility of employment.

In Aracaju, low income teenage girls in the public school system don't receive computers, social, and emotional skills to enter the work force. They fall into the cycle of being supported by a male. When this male leaves them, they are alone to provide for their children (16% of the families in Aracaju, 2010). Most public schools don't have computer labs. Recently, the government invested in 23% of the public schools giving 1 computer and 34 tablets for each school (2018). Having no basic qualifications they will continue to fall in 14% of the population in poverty.

Our innovation brings a new dimension to the Youth Protagonist Program. It imbues science and technology to a social program. It will improve the original program because it will be a more holistic approach thinking of all aspects of the student's knowledge. It will bring the student new cognitive knowledge which aims to improve social and emotional development. This innovation joins the STEM world with social sciences. 

In one of the sessions of the protagonist program, the youth have to choose an object that represents them. All kinds of objects are provided to the youth and they choose one. With the integration of computers, the youth will learn the fundamentals including how to turn on a computer, look for a browser,  and type the webpage that will be provided to them. Students also have to choose an image of an object and copy the image and paste into the workspace. 

This will help them lose their fear of computers and allow them to get comfortable using other forms of technology besides cellular devices. They will learn the basics of Windows. They will also learn the basics of Internet and computer access. 

In another session, students will need to write about their feelings. Instead of writing by hand in a notebook. They will use Word to write. 

These are ways they will be able to learn both sciences (social and technical) simultaneously. 

Computers have been widely used for education. Computer access has been known to promote quality education for poor students, provide access to information, and in the long-term be a cost efficient outlet in comparison to other solutions (Global Partnership for Education, 2013). Schools in the area we serve, are underfunded, understaffed, and under-served. The programs we provide supplement the education that students do not receive in their studies, especially in poorer states such as Sergipe. A 2011 MIT and Harvard study noted that instruction in conjunction with computer use has the ability to increase learning for students living in disadvantaged areas (Brookings.edu, 2016).

A studiy in São Paulo (Rocha J., 2017-Infogeekie) explains how digital technology was successfully used with similar Youth Protagonist Programs giving voice to teenagers in Public High Schools. The creative learning principles are based on the four P's: Project, Partnership, Passion, and Playful. Our Teenage Female Protagonist Program is aligned with the principles of Creative Learning (Resnick, M. 2014). Our program proposition is that teenage girls create new ideas about themselves and the world (Project). They will improve their teamwork skills and group dynamics with the computer technology (Partnership). The program will raise their interest in their future and in computer skills (Passion). They will learn social, emotional, and basic computer skills as they have fun during dynamic activities (Playful).

Our theory of change is the stages of change or transtheoretical model, which is based on the assumption that behavior change is a process. Individuals are at varying levels of motivation in their readiness to change, and people at different stages of the process can benefit from a multitude of interventions. This model identified five stages of change that can be applied to any behavior change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance (Prochaska, 1979).

For the purposes of our program intervention, we will only utilize three levels of the model to jumpstart and encourage behavior change in our youth: contemplation, preparation, and action. In the contemplation phase the girls have no immediate intention to take action, however through their participation in our program the girls are formulating a plan for behavior change. In the preparation phase the girls will be introduced to computers, fundamental skills, and software in order to form a catalyst for the girls to understand computers and take action to engage and comprehend the technology through series of the protagonist program.

Finally, in the action stage, the girls are able to familiarize themselves with
computers of the duration of our program and have taken for behavior
change that is currently short term, but has the capability to become a
long term change for the girls - building a foundation of knowledge that
the girls can have for future career opportunities and educational
success (RHIhub.com, 2020).

Our organization currently serves a estimated population of 15 girls. They are suburban youth in a vulnerable part of Aracaju in Sergipe, Northeast Brazil. 

In one year, we will serve around 180 new teenage girls in several different suburban areas of Aracaju. Our local partner has an affiliation with the local public primary schools (Junior High). Through this program, at least 6 teachers receive training to replicate the program. 

In 5 years, we will serve 900 new teenage girls and about 30 teachers

Within one year, our staff will be able to transform the life of 180 kids and train about 6 teachers in the public system to be able to replicate the protagonist program with the use of computers. 

Within 5 years, We will be able to transform the life of 900 teenage girls and train about 30 teachers to be able to replicate the program using computers. Each teacher is able to do 2 to 3 groups of up to 15 students in the program every year. 

The initial 6 teachers trained have the potential to replicate the program to a minimum of 180 teenage girls every year after receiving their initial training and technology.  

1- Financial barriers: Our organization does not provide computers due to lack of funding. We receive several product donations, but we have never received any computer donations. We don't receive much financial donations. The financial donations are used to pay local expenses with other important projects. In Brazil, there are not many policies motivating financial donations and social aid policies.

Our staff members are part-time volunteers. They are highly qualified (masters and doctorate level), but cannot dedicate full time to the nonprofit work because there is no revenue to pay salary to any of them.

2- Cultural barriers: The private sector in Brazil does not see financial donations as investments in their business. Many public school teachers are unequipped to teach and provide an adequate public education.They are not motivated to teach vulnerable youth. It will be a challenge to motivate teachers to get engage in the Teenage Female Protagonist program.

In one year, our barriers will be acquiring more resources to replicate the program model. Other barriers, evaluating, supporting, and supervising the program implementation with limited time dedication from the volunteer staff. Other barrier is to motivate the first local schools to get involved with the project  

In five years, our barriers will be building a network to be able to give support, supervision, and evaluation for all the schools and teachers implementing the program. Another important barrier is how to get the volume of financial partnerships to get computers every year to supply the school needs.

1- Financial barriers: learning new skills on how to more efficiently gain financial donations to sustain the program development; Learning how to create partnerships for computer donations.

2- Cultural barriers: Networking within the private sector to integrate a cultural understanding and benefits of providing financial donations and forming permanent partners in the Teenage Female Protagonist program, provide meetings with probable replication teachers from all the schools and use psychological motivation techniques in order to engage them in the program. 

In 1 and 5 years the financial barrier will be present. We need to learn more about fundraising, marketing, and grants in order to increase in this period of time for our financial revenue. We expect to get deeper and more information on this topic from our Solve members and partners. This is the crucial part in order for the program to spread to other communities and in order for our staff be able to dedicate more time to the program. 

The main cultural issues can be solved by learning more from Solve partners and members how they overcame their problems inside their communities. Another way we plan to solve the cultural issue is using our psychology staff to break these cultural issues. They have already applied some techniques successfully for some cultural issues that helped a lot in our other programs.  

EBY has 4 staff workers working as volunteers part time to raise funds for the Brazilian projects we support. Our Brazilian (Local) Partner "Missão Káris" has 4 part-time volunteer workers. All Brazilian partner workers serve directly with the local community. Our EBY president (Dr. Denise Correa) lives and serve the local community partner organization as a part-time volunteer.  

EBY president (Dr. Denise Correa, MPH community health education, DHSc Global Health) has joined the local nonprofit organization (Missão Káris) in Aracaju in 2015. She has been serving Aracaju vulnerable young people and teenage girls for the past 5 years. She learned the principles and applied the youth protagonist program in some public schools in vulnerable communities. EBY vice-president (Shavette Campbell, MPH community health and health behavior) stayed in Aracaju for 3 months serving the community through fieldwork and getting to know about the local culture. She witnessed the application of youth protagonist principles program with girls. The other EBY staff live in the US, but they have been several times or lived at some point in Brazil.  

Our nonprofit local partner (Missão Káris) staff is composed of one education professional (who worked for 4 years in partnwership with Paulo Freire Institute in vulnerable communities), two psychologist (working for at least 15 years), and another business administration professional. The psychologists develop psychodrama projects. The staff has been developing youth protagonist program in several private and public schools in Aracaju. They have developed a relationship with vulnerable teenage girls. They have been helping local population in developing social, emotional and professional skills for the last 8 years. They all have been living in the Aracaju for more than 18 years and serving inside vulnerable communities for at least 8 years. They have thorough knowledge of the local vulnerable community, culture, young people, and specially teenage girls and women.  

In Aracaju, We partner with public primary schools, where we implement Youth protagonist program. 

We partner with Molas Capoeira group to raise awareness of multi-cultural and multi-ethnic issues in Brazil.

We partner with several churches (and temples) who donate volunteer help, products, and space.

We partner with RENAS (National Evangelical Network for Social Action) in Sergipe State and Brazil World Vision.  

We partner with several different individual professionals such as doctors, psychologists, dentists, social workers, nurses, and etc.

We partner with ISQV (Sergipean Institute of Life Quality) promoting health lectures in exchange for donations to our local partner (Missão Káris).

We partner with GM-Chevrolet local Car Dealership in Aracaju (Contorno). They donate several products for our vulnerable community and promote activities to enrich the life of the young people we serve. 

We partner with the city commissioner Emilia Correa in helping with some city council community problems. 

We partner with the Public Local Minister in the protection of children and teenagers ( Ministério Publico de Sergipe- vara da infancia e adolescencia). 

In the US, we partner with The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (Dr. Sharon Morrison- Department of Public Health) sending Public Health interns to help with different projects in the community. We also partner with Dr. Robert Aronson (Taylor University- Department of Public Health) mentoring through new community development ideas or new approaches to old ideas. 

We also have had a partnership with Spring Garden Community Church in Greensboro for the last 3 years. 

Empowering Brazilian Youth (EBY) is Christian organization that promotes empowerment for poor communities in Brazil through young people (under 18 years old or while they are in High School) and their families by developing fundamental skills (such as academic, social, health, work, spiritual, and psychological) and knowledge based in Public Health and community development transformational principles. EBY helps children and teenagers to develop their full potential and their families to seek better conditions of life for themselves and for the community. People from all religions, ethnicities, sexual orientation, gender, and race are welcome! Our goal is to show and share with these people the Love of Jesus.

This corporation is organized to promote empowerment of poor communities in Brazil by developing fundamental skills and knowledge in youth and their families. We fundraise for nonprofits which empower poor youth and communities in Brazil. We currently have one local partner organization (Missão Káris) in Aracaju, Sergipe. 

Currently, Missão Káris, our local nonprofit partner serve vulnerable young people, their families (usually mothers), and ultimately the community they live in. We provide services through education for empowerment. We provide long term and short term workshops within one topic such as Photography, Arts, Theater, English, Female teenage discussion groups, youth protagonist, etc. They need these workshops to discover their talents, to be out of the drug traffic reach, to be busy with some positive activity, to learn about their identity, and to use creativity to release their emotional and socioeconomic anxiety. 

Currently, EBY is supported mostly by individual donations (cash and products). The local partner organization (Missão Káris) gets its financial support from EBY and some individual local partners. Most local partners (private sector business and individuals) donate products and services. 

EBY is financial sustainable because we do not have any expenses. Our local Brazilian partner (Missão Káris) has been sustainable because we only implement programs that we are able to sustain. We have small local ongoing projects. Our sustainability path is to continue to partner with local (Brazilian) individuals who can offer their services to our partner. We want to increase local companies partnerships in order to expand our projects.  

We are applying for grants in the US and in Brazil to expand our programs to many communities. 

For the last two years we have noticed that our vulnerable teenagers have not been able to obtain simple jobs like gas pumps workers in gas stations or gate keeper because it is required that they have basic computer skills that they don't have. They also have been offered free online basic computer skills courses through our local partner nonprofit but do not utilize the service because they believe they can manage through the use of apps on their cellphones and they don't see the difference. 

We want to challenge vulnerable teenage girls using our Teenage Female Protagonist Program with computers using basic programs such as Windows, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.We want to expand our Youth Protagonist Project to include technology and develop the girls not only socio-emotional skills but also computer skills. 

Solve can help us with the funding for the first year program. Solve can help with further knowledge on the technology we need, with the visibility we need in Brazil and the US, and with new local and global partners. We need more knowledge in raising funds, in marketing, in planning, implementing, and evaluating our program so we can expand to other communities. 

We would benefit from this partnership to learn how to work better with marketing, media, and exposure so we can raise more funds and get more stability in our sustainability pathway to keep the Teenage Female Protagonist Program going. 

We would formulate new models for funding and revenue so we can renew our organization. 

We would like new technology solution alternatives for our program besides the basic ones we know how to apply.  

We would like to be able better monitor and evaluate the performance and the implementation of our program in order to be able to expand to other communities. 

Solve members (organizations, MIT faculty and initiatives) could help us with new tools and better management of resources we currently utilize in order to innovate our fundraising techniques, update our marketing tools, and improve our overall technologies.

We would like Solve members to bring new monitoring and evaluation methods that we could apply to our program. 

We would like Solve members to bring other opportunities for expanding our program to new communities that we haven't worked with in the past.   

In summary, we are looking for new culturally effective ways to expand our program in our local community and in surrounding communities.

Our program is called Teenage Female Protagonist because it gives a voice to teenage girls so they can conquer want they want in the world. It gives them social, emotional, and technical skills to be able to begin to walk their own path. 

Our program teaches them to use basic computer skills and software. It also teach them how to recognize their own individuality and talents. It helps them to recognize other people's voice and their own voice. It gives them basic computer skills to find a first job and follow their own path.

We will solidify our prize and create our program model for replication to our city and to the state in order to improve the opportunities for other teenage girls in public schools.

We are offering basic computer skills to vulnerable teenage girls in public schools in Aracaju, Northeast Brazil. This part of Brazil has been considered by the Economist (April, 2000) as Technological Excluded. The vulnerable teenage girls in public schools get worse by their socioeconomic situation to be set farther away from technology.

Besides living in an technologically excluded area, they are women, they are teenagers, they study in Public Schools, and they have low income household. All these factors sum up to make computers something intangible for them.

We will solidify our prize and program model for replication to enrich our city and state in order to improve local community outcomes and opportunities.

Our teenage girls will learn how to use computers. Although for many of us, this technology is a commonplace, for them, it is not because many of them don't have financial and physical access to a computer. They are afraid of this technology,and they don't have any skill to use simple software such as
Word that is required for a position of employment in the modern world.

The overall goal of our program initiative is to enrich, grow, and expand our program to provide opportunities and foundational learning to our city and our state.