Programmes
Bahia Street’s mission is to break cycles of poverty and violence through quality education for impoverished African-Brazilian women and girls living in the shantytowns of Salvador, Brazil. Outside of Brazil, we teach new perspectives on NGO management and issues of inequality, poverty, race, class and gender.
>More on our programmes in Brazil
>More on our programmes outside Brazil
In Brazil, Bahia Street provides a well-rounded education for 75 girls as a supplement to their attendance at local, poorly-funded state schools. Girls spend at least four hours a day at the Bahia Street School, where they receive instruction in all basic subjects as well as in health and reproduction, art, and leadership skills. For many girls, the Bahia Street School represents the only place where they can eat a hot meal, take a shower, and receive positive encouragement from adult role models.
Accomplishments
- Fifteen Bahia Street graduates are now at university studying law, library science, communications, architecture, accounting and nursing.
- Barbara, one of Bahia Street’s first students, completed a university degree in nutrition in 2008. She is Bahia Street’s first graduate to complete a university degree.
- Bahia Street’s second university graduate, Daza, received her degree in journalism from the Federal University of Bahia in 2010.
The Bahia Street School
Bahia Street started in a room generously loaned by the local Teacher’s Federation. When the programme grew, it became necessary to rent a building in the centre of Salvador, easily accessible by bus to all the shantytown neighbourhoods. In late 2003, Bahia Street bought a building in downtown Salvador, which was completely gutted and renovated. The students and staff moved into the new Bahia Street School in February 2005. After an 8-year process of raising enough funds for further renovations, the Bahia Street School is now a complete five-storey building, with a modern kitchen, dining area, science laboratory, an outside play area, and more.
View photo slideshow or photo album of the completed building.
The entrance of the Bahia Street School with a wonderful sign which declares Construindo Mulheres (“building women”) on top of the Bahia Street logo.
