Uerê Project

The Uerê-Mello paedagogy uses oral dynamics as the main element for developing language. A class, regardless of its content, is divided into three learning phases: "the oral phase, the interactive phase, and the writing phase". None of these phases lasts beyond 10 to 20 minutes and, in some locations, the same phase is limited to 10 or 15 minutes in response to the shorter attention spans. This paedagogy also provides an hour upon arriving at school and after lunch for "getting the brain into the groove." During that hour, six oral exercises are the focus.

The traumatised children present a "block" in certain areas of the brain. This affects the formation of cognitive association, perception, verbal and visual memory, and comprehension of symbolism. Painful memories tend to be "sandwiched" as a way to remove them from other past memories. As such, the teachers use their daily contact with the child to rebuild associative mechanisms and strengthen brain connections. This implies a routine of exercises that generates a new way of visualising, a new way of performing tasks, and a new way of expressing feelings, all of which are done exercising the memory and limiting the response reaction to the stress.

Mathematics is also fundamental to developing memory because math is more abstract than language. Each child who participates in the Uerê Project has a daily course of classes and specific exercises that are designed to improve logical thought. For children who experience difficulty in writing, the words are broken down and specific games are created, using sketches and language, which consist of reuniting the letters and composing the words again.

Teaching methods include exercises to improve visual concentration because many traumatised children suffer from an ocular movement disorder that impedes their ability to focus on a determined spatial point, which is itself a fundamental prior condition to learning.

Children, Youth, Education.

Every year, Projeto Uerê receives about 400 children and youth. As of June 2015, over 7,000 children and youth had passed through Uerê, 84% of whom were not left to chance in the streets or involved with drug traffic inside the community and were instead able to go to either high school or technical school.

According to organisers, the Uerê-Mello paedagogy can be implemented in any country without regard to place or space, inside in a classroom or outside in the street. This paedagogy has been incorporated into public policy as part of the state-run public school network in Río de Janeiro, supporting some 150 schools in the suburbs and another 50 secondary schools in Recife, in Northeastern Brazil.