Adult education in Brazil

Severino Jovino de Lima learns literacy skills at makeshift classes held at his workplace [Marcella Haddad]

CAFOD is funding a project which provides basic education to illiterate construction workers in north-east Brazil

Until recently, Severino de Lima didn’t know how to read and write.

The 26-year-old grew up in a desperately poor region of North-East Brazil, where children are sent out to work at a young age.

One out of every three adults in his region cannot write their own name.

“I come from the countryside,” says Severino. “I used to get up early every day to work in the fields under the hot sun. I didn’t have the energy to learn in the evenings.”

New found skills

Now that Severino is married with a family of his own, he travels every week into the nearest city – João Pessoa – to earn a living as a construction worker.

CAFOD has funded a group of volunteer professionals who hold classes at building sites to give literacy training and basic education to construction workers in the Paraíba area.

These workers are mostly migrants from rural areas, working for low pay and under poor conditions. Being able to read, write and use numbers helps the workers and their families to improve their quality of life and working conditions.

Thanks to such classes, Severino is now able to read and write.

“Now I can read where the buses are going,” he says. “I can read road signs and write my own name. It has really changed my life.”

Severino is hoping that his new-found skills will help him to get a good promotion in his construction job so that he can support his own six-year-old son through school.

“I really want my son to go to school, because I don’t want him to go through what I went through,” says Severino. “I want him to study and maybe he will be a doctor one day.”

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