Who We Are
Aprender is the Portuguese verb ‘To Learn’. It’s what we’re all about – to learn from each other, for the benefit of the teaching profession and for the good of the thousands of young people we have the honour and opportunity to nurture and know.
Aprender is a family of people involved in the development of education. We are an NGO devoted to sharing best practice and work in partnership with local, regional, State and National Government in education strategy and organisation.
Aprender began in 2000 following a life-changing holiday in Brazil. The idea planted then has grown into the only overseas NGO working with state schools in Brazil to help young people move out of poverty. While staying with a family during the holiday, Phil Hawkins, Director of Aprender, got talking with the teenagers in the home about their school. An invitation followed to visit and that was the event that proved to be ‘the moment’ when the vision for Aprender was born. Huge class sizes, poor conditions, a demoralised workforce – often not paid, often in class in the day and waiting on tables in the evening. Teenagers under huge stress- poor education prospects resulting in little chance of a job and so the poverty cycle continues. Just how could we help? Partnership was the key. By careful research, pilots and lots of conversations with students, teachers and government officials we, together, were able to begin to understand the way forward. We needed to provide opportunities to change the students experience in the classroom. More variety, less passivity. More colour, less greyscale. By trial and error over a 5-year period, we began to build a resource pack that was able to deliver results in whatever local context we found ourselves. Teachers changing the way they taught. Learners changing the way they learnt. The sense of togetherness and the chance to excel against the odds. No instant fixes but the beginning of a journey, no dependency but liberation. The Aprender project continues to grow, evolve and teach everyone involved new ways of thinking not just about the learning environment, but about ourselves too.
Our aim is to tackle poverty with justice and compassion; to empower and restore poor communities. We give assistance where it’s needed, not on the basis of race, creed, nationality or gender.