Portugal
Key-stakeholders involved:
- (public + private & sport + extra-sport)
- public + private – schools
- institutions for children and young people at risk
- social neighborhoods
Brief description
Implementation of the practice
Impact
Lessons learnt/recommendation
Contact details
The main objective of a Superpower School is to empower children and youth to become change makers in their own communities, using the different talents they learn throughout the year to solve or minimize a problem they have identified in the community.
The project targets at-risk children and youth, ranging from 2 to 23 years old, from schools, social housing districts and residential homes of 7 different cities in Portugal. These children are most-likely to perform poorly at school – dropping out or not progressing – and are often alienated from solutions in their environment due to their emotional-behavioural issues, putting them at risk of social exclusion.
Developed and implemented by Associação Juvenil Transformer since 2010 in schools, children and youth’s residential homes, as well as social housing districts, Superpowers’ Schools promote the civic and social involvement of beneficiaries in their communities by empowering them with the tools for competency development – such as adaptability, self-regulation, communication, creative thinking, critical thinking, resilience and problem solving.
So far, the project impacted 4846 T-kids and generated 252 payback actions. T-kids’ involvement in the community, through what they love to do, is the project’s biggest impact. An assessment conducted by an external entity reported the following figures: 74% of T-kids keep in touch with the friends they have made in the project; 77% is the volunteering rate of T-kids in the two years after the programme; 80% of T-kids claims to know better what to do in life; 47% of T-kids practices regularly the learnt activity; T-kids’ school retention decreases 44.3% and the rate of T-kids with no negative results increases 30%. A different study revealed gains for T-kids’ socioemotional competences – increase in self-esteem, sense of belonging, responsibility and autonomy; identification with positive models; increase in respect for diversity; increase in the social and civic participation index; greater social awareness – and more united communities.
The project defies many aspects of education: optional attendance, co-building of a programme between mentor(s) and T-kids, active and effective participation of T-kids in sessions. Distinctive as well is the quality of relationship mentors share with their groups – close, caring and informal – a sibling figure. Our methodology spikes curiosity and critical thinking, and fosters beneficiaries’ social consciousness, simultaneously making them accountable and empowering them for changing the world around them. Nuno was a T-kid from a high-risk neighbourhood that had a talent for kickboxing, but difficulty in managing emotions. After two transformative years with our mentor Alice, he began transforming his community through kickboxing.
Associação Juvenil Transformers
Catarina Araújo
catarina@m-trf.org
Tel: 91667987