Fieldnotes: Blogging on UNICEF's child survival work in the field

We had an amazing experience this morning with children in the Nova Iguaçu community, a very poor area south of Rio de Janeiro. Theirs is one in which UNICEF and the community are coming together to develop a neighborhood concept for schools that is dramatically changing education for children and reducing violence. In this community the project divides childrens´ school day in two parts: class time and activities. The activities are all located within the community and may include swimming lessons in the pool of one of the residents or work on a film project at the film school nearby. All of the activities are walking distance and the path is marked on the sidewalk with red paint. The community even mobilized to change the traffic patterns and placement of street vendors to improve childrens´ access to the various places on the ``campus``. We visited with elementary students participating in a drawing workshop as well as teenagers at the film project where we were able to see short films they had written and created. We were all incredibly impressed and thrilled to hear that this neighborhood school concept is active in 20 communities and plans are in place to scale up to 80 by next year.

I am having trouble posting photographs from the computer I am working on, but will try to post some on Saturday if I don´t have luck before then. So please check back then!