[:en]
Jeferson Renan de Oliveira, 17, is a student in the Recode program’s in-person course, Learning to Program. When he started the course, he had been out of school for 7 years, since the 3rd grade of elementary school, and he was not working either. A week later, he finally started classes in the 6th grade of high school at Bernardino de Melo Municipal School, in Japeri, in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro. “I’m enjoying it, I always wanted to come back,” he says.
For the young man, it’s a new beginning. He moved from Manaus (AM) to the state of Rio de Janeiro 5 months ago to live with his mother, from whom he had been separated for six years. According to him, the main obstacle to enrolling in school was the lack of his father’s name, with whom he lived, on his birth certificate. In Rio, he received support from the Guardianship Council to regularize his situation and return to his studies.
He says he found out about the Recode program’s course by chance. While accompanying his mother to the market, he decided to stop by the Regional Council of Social Assistance of Japeri and was invited to attend a Recode NGO lecture on programming courses.
Renan was interested and came with an aunt for the first time to downtown Rio, on a 2.5-hour bus and train trip. The effort is paying off. “I’m enjoying the course because we learn to make games and things that I never tried before, that I thought were simple but aren’t. I want it to help me get a job to help my family,” he says.
In the Japeri community, he has already become an ambassador for introduction to programming courses. “I’ve already invited two classmates and a friend. And I’ll invite more people. I tell them we’re going to learn a lot of new things,” he says. At Recode NGO, the young man is also happy to be able to use a computer again. In Manaus, the equipment was only accessible to him in internet cafes in the city.
[:]