Promundo, in partnership with Plan International and the State Department of Education of Maranhão, closed two classes of the Gender Equity in Schools Course, offered by the Gender Equity in Schools Portal – PEGE, in Codó and São Luís, in Maranhão, on the 21st and 22nd of October.
The closing classes began with a chat about the topics covered in the course – “Gender”, “Sexuality”, “Paternity and Maternity” and “Violence”. In Codó, working on the theme “Gender” proved to be an important tool for confronting various prejudices, as reported by one of the teachers present: “In the area of language, it is possible to work on 'gender' through prejudice, which is what has been discussed more recently. The texts already contain, for example, 'they and they', recognizing that it is sexist to treat a group that has women and men with the pronoun 'they'.”
For one of the teachers present in the São Luís class, the contents and themes covered in the course were of great help for a project he developed with the students: “It was something new for us, we did a project to deal with gender diversity and racial. We managed to raise some awareness among students. Some have difficulty accepting their religion. But the course added and brought knowledge about several issues that I had previously confused.”
The chat was followed by a presentation about two Promundo initiatives with teenagers. The “No Shame!” campaign which promotes sexual and reproductive health and rights with students from the state education network in Rio de Janeiro and the “I Believe” campaign, which promoted racial and gender equality with teenagers from the Guararapes and Maré communities, also in Rio de Janeiro. The presentation aimed to address the importance of youth protagonism and peer influence, bringing two cases of campaigns that took into account the desires, questions and language of teenagers themselves in their development and implementation.
The two closing days ended with an activity involving the construction and presentation of lesson plans or projects, carried out by teachers for the schools in which they work. In São Luís, one of the teachers contributed to the ideas by presenting a video of his project on gender and race, carried out in 2014.
About PEGE
The Gender Equity in Schools Portal (PEGE) is a virtual distance education environment developed by Promundo, which aims to raise awareness and train education professionals on the topic of promoting gender equity. After years of interventions and evaluations of initiatives developed in schools, Promundo sought to expand the reach of Programs H and M, developed in 1999 together with partner organizations, with the aim of promoting discussions and reflection on gender norms with men and women. Launched in 2011, PEGE became the main initiative of Promundo's work in the education sector in Brazil
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