Stories

My name is Cristiano and I love maths

Cristiano Ruiz

ProFuturo is a digital education programme for the improvement of educational quality, using digital tools, in vulnerable environments and does so with a dual strategy: on the one hand it improves teacher training at the techno-pedagogical level and, on the other, it promotes meaningful student learning through motivational digital learning experiences.

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«Maths are easier than any other subject, much easier than speaking Cambeba. I love it. »

Profuturo dreams about the 10 million children who will have quality education in 2020.
Photo: Jesús González

The Kanata T-Ykua Municipal School is supported between the jungle and the river by a community that firmly believes that education is their best tool for going forward to the future. A future that connects traditional to global, oral story-telling to the most sophisticated technology, and which makes equality of opportunities a reality for boys and girls from the most underprivileged populations.

14 mill.

children and adolescents are outside of the educational system.

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Photo: Jesús González

After washing, dressing and having breakfast of fried banana grown in his community, Cristiano picks up his back-pack, leaves his little wooden house and heads for school, crossing a forest still damp from the morning dew. He pauses to greet his ancestors, buried in the local cemetery. «Our grandparents protect us», the child says as he resumes his journey to class.

2.8 million in primary education
Photo: Jesús González

After washing, dressing and having breakfast of fried banana grown in his community, Cristiano picks up his back-pack, leaves his little wooden house and heads for school, crossing a forest still damp from the morning dew. He pauses to greet his ancestors, buried in the local cemetery. «Our grandparents protect us», the child says as he resumes his journey to class.

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Cristiano dreams of going to university and of becoming a famous footballer, but sometimes he also has nightmares about the river and the alligators.

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Cristiano is in fourth grade and already knows how to read and write. In class, he plays and interacts with his companions, but always obeying the rules and without answering back to the teacher. The indigenous school works combining traditional knowledge which is transmitted from generation to generation, with a conventional curriculum. «Our people have a very strong oral tradition, which is why we make projects out of story-telling which summarise stories about the Curupira, the Mother of the Jungle, Boto…», says Raimundo, who as well as being the headmaster of the school is also one of the people responsible for revitalising the Cambeba language. «Over time, these stories are forgotten, but the children need to know them. We also take the opportunity to work with teaching the traditional practices of hunting and fishing of the indigenous people»