A young man who underwent various trainings at Recode has reinforced his role as an agent of transformation in Costa Barros.

Felipe Rocha, 19, believes that every human being can do good and develop themselves. “As long as we believe in life, there is potential,” he says. Demonstrating great maturity despite his young age, the young man is already a social leader in the Costa Barros neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, which has one of the lowest human development indices in the city. The youngest of ten children, he never knew his father. Despite this, he found good opportunities in life and now volunteers to help children and young people in his community.

Between 2017 and 2018, Felipe underwent various technology trainings at Recode, as well as participating in the Active Citizens program training for social leaders, promoted by Recode and the British Council. “With the training at Recode, I lost the fear of learning new things. I ventured into the field of programming and was inspired by the dedication of the educator. Through Recode, I also met a network of people who want to give their best to help others,” he says.

With the certificates in hand from the courses he took at our organization, he got a job as a Young Apprentice and continued to work at the Visão Restaurar NGO as an instructor for 22 children aged 8 to 12. And he will begin 2019 with new projects, such as Me Segue, which encourages the revitalization of places abandoned by the community itself. The idea is to occupy places and squares with sports and poetry.

He is keen to remember that he has been a student of the NGO since he was 8 years old and has always sought to give back the opportunities he received. “What really propelled me was not wanting the community to be the way it was. I always looked at the children and wanted to do something for them. I want them to take their focus off this reality, I want to bring new horizons, new perspectives on life, to look at life in a different way. There are children who are afraid to enter a theater, a beautiful public place. I want them to know that they can be an engineer, an artist,” says Felipe.

Check out Felipe talking about his community projects on national television by clicking here!